Beneficiary onboarding is the set of steps a payer or payout provider completes before it can send money to a new recipient. It applies wherever payments go out repeatedly to many parties: marketplaces paying sellers, platforms paying workers, companies paying suppliers and remittance senders adding a new payee.
The recipient, or the payer on the recipient's behalf, supplies a name, country, payout method and account details, and often tax information. The provider checks the format of the account data, may confirm that the account exists and belongs to the named person through bank account verification, and runs sanctions screening. How far identity checks go depends on the model: a recipient who merely receives funds may only be screened, while one who holds a balance with the provider is a customer and needs full know your customer checks. Careful onboarding reduces payout failure and misdirected payments later.