Onboard new Retail Customers
Retail customer onboarding
Every retail customer needs a CustomerId before they can be given access to our products, such as accounts. How you get one depends on who carries out the customer's due diligence checks:
- ClearBank carries out the checks - Use our customer due diligence endpoint and webhooks to onboard the customer with our Know Your Customer (KYC) checks included. We'll create the customer if they pass.
- You carry out the checks - You can then create the retail customer directly, your request should include the outcomes of your checks. No KYC checks are performed by ClearBank.
Once a retail customer exists, you can retrieve and manage their details using the endpoints on our Manage existing Retail Customers page.
Onboard with ClearBank's due diligence
Our retail customer onboarding endpoint lets you onboard new individuals as retail customers in a single request. Share key information about the customer, and we'll handle the rest. When onboarding is complete, you'll receive a CustomerId for them.
Every onboarding application includes our KYC due diligence checks. These checks can pass or fail, and we'll tell you the outcome by webhook. If the checks pass, we'll create the retail customer for you. If they fail, no customer is created. We may also need more information from the customer before we can complete our checks.
If you'd like access to this product, please speak to your Client Director.
Message flow diagrams
Webhooks
Simulating onboarding webhooks
You can simulate successful, declined and additional information onboarding outcomes - as well as additional information emails - in our simulation environment.
To do this, call the POST /customer-due-diligence/v1/retail/onboard endpoint with the customerData.name.surname property set to:
"pass"to simulate checks passing, and receive a Retail Customer Application Successful webhook."fail"to simulate checks failing, and receive a Retail Customer Application Declined webhook."info"to simulate checks requiring additional information. To receive a Retail Customer Additional Info Required webhook instead of an email, ensure thecustomerData.idvEmailsEnabledproperty is set tofalse.
Create a retail customer with your own due diligence
If you conduct your own KYC and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) checks, you can create a retail customer directly. No ClearBank due diligence checks are performed, so you must supply the outcomes of your own checks in the request. The kycAml object, taxDetails (including at least one tax residency), personalDetails and addressHistory are all required.
KYC and AML fields
When you create a retail customer, you'll need to provide the outcomes of any KYC and AML checks you conduct on them. You can record these outcomes using the kycAml object. Guidance for each of the object's properties are listed below:
sanctions- If your KYC checks identify the customer as sanctioned, set totrue.pep- If your checks identify the customer as a Politically Exposed Person (PEP), set toYes_DomesticorYes_Internationalaccordingly - otherwise set toNo.rca- If your checks identify the customer as a Relative or Close Associate (RCA) of a PEP, set toYes_DomesticorYes_Internationalaccordingly - otherwise set toNo.craRating- Use this field to declare a Customer Risk Assessment rating for the customer. There are four tiers of risk:Low,Medium,High, andVery_High.
If you have new KYC or AML outcomes for a customer, you can update these using the PATCH /customers/v2/retail/{customerId} endpoint.
Addresses
When you create a retail customer, you'll also need to provide their current address in the addressHistory.currentAddress object. You can optionally record their previous address history using the addressHistory.previousAddresses array.
If you're still using our V1 retail customer endpoint, you can create a retail customer with it below. Once you've created a retail customer, you can create a new FSCS-protected embedded banking account using their unique ID.