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Customer onboarding software for Trust and Company Service Providers (TCSPs) in the UAE is a digital compliance platform that automates corporate client Know Your Business (KYB) and helps in capturing the legal entity, its directors, shareholders, and ultimate beneficial owners (UBOs) at every tier of the ownership structure.
The software also supports capturing nominee principals, document expiry tracking, and direct screening integration against sanctions, politically exposed persons (PEP), and adverse media for TCSPs supervised by the Ministry of Economy and Tourism (MoET) to effectively meet regulatory compliance.
A TCSP’s client is a corporate entity, rather than an individual. Unlike standard KYC solutions, which are designed to capture and verify a single individual, TCSPs must perform comprehensive know your business (KYB) onboarding for complex corporate structures.
KYB-enabled corporate onboarding platform is designed to manage these multi-tier ownership structures systematically, helping TCSPs to meet regulatory requirements effectively.
Customer onboarding software supports the TCSP compliance team by automating the capture of corporate entities and mapping multi-tier ownership structures, recording nominee-principal relationships, and providing complete visibility of directors, shareholders, and ultimate beneficial owners (UBOs).
The software also integrates sanctions, PEP, and adverse media screening for all parties, and maintains complete inspection-ready records for every client structure, helping TCSPs to meet the regulatory requirements.
The UAE AML law requirements of TCSPs on customer onboarding include:
KYB: entity and ownership structure
TCSPs are required to capture the legal entity’s registration documents, constitutional documents, and business information before providing any specific TCSP services.
Director and shareholder verification
Directors and shareholders must be independently identified and verified, and corporate shareholders are required to complete their own KYB to identify the additional UBOs.
UBO identification at 25% thresholds
Under Article 10 (1) (a) of Cabinet Resolution No. 134 of 2025, it is required to identify and verify every natural person with 25% or more ownership or control at any tier of the structure.
Nominee arrangements
The TCSPs are required to identify the principal behind the nominee and capture their details as part of the onboarding process, where a nominee director or shareholder is used.
Record retention
All the onboarding records, including entity documents, directors and shareholder verification, UBO records, and nominee principal capture, must be retained for at least five years in an inspection-ready format.
Customer onboarding software helps TCSPs comply by automating corporate KYB, multi-tier ownership mapping, and screening across complex corporate structures.
The table below outlines how customer onboarding software helps TCSPs in meeting the compliance obligations:
UAE AML Requirement | Sector Onboarding Challenge | Customer Onboarding Feature | Evidence Generated |
Entity KYB | Capturing corporate registration and constitutional documents | Entity capture workflow with document upload and verification | Entity profile, registration documents, approval log |
Director verification | Verifying all directors individually | Director capture workflow with ID verification per director | Director records, ID documents, verification log |
Shareholder verification | Verifying all shareholders including corporate shareholders | Shareholder capture with corporate shareholder KYB linkage | Shareholder records, ownership percentage, verification log |
UBO mapping, all tiers | Mapping UBOs through unlimited ownership tiers | Multi-tier UBO mapping with 25% threshold capture | UBO records per tier, ownership chart, verification log |
Nominee principal capture | Capturing principals behind nominee arrangements | Nominee principal workflow, captures and links to nominee | Nominee record, principal ID, relationship documentation |
Document expiry tracking | Keeping corporate documents current across the client book | Document expiry tracking with renewal alerts per document | Expiry status log, renewal alerts, updated document records |
Screening for all parties | Screening entity, directors, shareholders, and UBOs | Screening integration triggered at onboarding for all parties | Screening records per party, linked to client structure |
Customer onboarding software helps TCSPs identify potential compliance risks by detecting key red flags, which include:
The key essential features of customer onboarding software for TCSPs in the UAE:
The software captures corporate entities and maps ownership through every tier to identify UBOs holding 25% or more ownership or control.
The software helps in recording nominee director and shareholder arrangements, identifying the principal, and retaining supporting documents.
Where a corporate entity appears as a shareholder, the software triggers a subsidiary KYB for that entity, capturing its own directors, shareholders, and UBOs, before completing the ownership structure.
The software helps manage document collection and verification for every entity, director, shareholder, and UBO within the client structure.
Monitor document expiry dates across all parties, send renewal alerts, and link updated documents to the correct party and client record.
The software helps in screening all entities and individuals against sanctions, PEP, and adverse media databases during onboarding.
It helps in maintaining inspection-ready, complete, timestamped, and exportable records of the ownership structures, documents, screening results, and compliance decisions for the Ministry of Economy and Tourism (MoET) inspections.
Checklist to evaluate whether a customer onboarding solution meets the compliance and operational requirements of UAE TCSPs:
Citadel365 customer onboarding software helps TCSPs in the UAE by automating multi-tier KYB and UBO mapping, nominee-principal capture, document collection, and document expiry across the full client book.
Citadel365 also enables integrated screening against sanctions, PEP, and adverse media and provides inspection-ready structure records for MoET supervisions.
Citadel365 helps TCSPs in the UAE, including company formation agents, registered office providers, company secretarial firms, trust administrators, and registered agents, simplify compliance and client onboarding.
Customer onboarding for TCSPs in the UAE goes beyond verifying a single individual: it requires capturing the entire corporate structure, including the entity, directors, shareholders, UBOs, across every ownership tier, and nominee principal relationship. It also requires collecting documents for every party, tracking document expiries, and maintaining inspection-ready records for MoET inspection.
Citadel365 helps TCSPs in the UAE to move from basic, first-tier onboarding to a comprehensive, multi-tier KYB workflow that supports regulatory compliance and inspection-ready records.
Know your business verifies a corporate entity’s legal existence, structure, and UBOs. TCSPs need KYB instead of standard KYC because standard KYC focuses on a single natural person, whereas KYB checks for a corporate entity and is essential for TCSPs onboarding corporate clients.
Yes, modern corporate onboarding software screens all relevant parties, automatically tracing ownership chains to identify UBOs holding 25% or more ownership or control.
TCSP onboarding records must be kept for at least five years; the retention period typically begins after the end of the business relationship or completion of an occasional transaction in accordance with UAE AML record-keeping requirements.
Citadel365 helps TCSPs in the UAE by automating customer onboarding and integrated screening to simplify compliance and maintain complete inspection-ready records.
Sridhar is a Certified Anti-Money Laundering Investigator (CAMI) with over 30 years of experience in compliance, risk, and audit, including more than 20 years in AML and financial crime prevention. He has contributed to the development of UAE regulatory standards through the FERG sub-committee and has maintained active engagement with the Central Bank of the UAE on supervisory and compliance matters.
