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When a customer provides a government-issued ID — a BVN, NIN, national ID, or passport — you can verify their identity directly against the authoritative source and fold the result into their entity record. This is the highest-confidence onboarding path: the returned PII fields come from the official registry, and a name or date-of-birth mismatch raises a fraud signal automatically. This guide walks you through creating an entity, triggering a KYC check with an ID number, interpreting the result, and understanding the risk score update.

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Prerequisites

  • A Youverify account at cowork.youverify.co
  • Your API secret key from the dashboard under Settings → API Keys
  • The customer’s ID type, ID number, and country

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Supported ID types by country

🇳🇬 Nigeria

  • bvn — Bank Verification Number
  • nin — National Identification Number
  • nin_phone — NIN lookup by phone number
  • drivers_license — Nigerian Driver’s Licence
  • passport — International Passport
  • pvc — Permanent Voter’s Card

🇰🇪 Kenya

  • keNationalId — National ID
  • kePassport — International Passport
  • keAlienId — Alien ID
  • keDriversLicense — Driver’s Licence

🇿🇦 South Africa

  • zaSAID — South African ID Number

🇬🇭 Ghana

  • ghPassport — International Passport
  • ghVoter / oldGhVoter — Ghana Voters Card (new/old)
  • ssnit — Social Security and National Insurance Trust

🇨🇮 Côte d'Ivoire

  • National ID (new and old formats)
  • Residence Card

🌍 Global

Many additional countries are supported via the global eIDV endpoint. Contact your Youverify account team or consult the dashboard for the full list of supported countries.

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Steps

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What happens behind the scenes

When you post the KYC verification, Youverify:
  1. Queries the authoritative source (e.g. Nigeria’s BVN database, NIMC for NIN)
  2. Compares the returned PII against the validations block you supplied
  3. Attaches the result to the entity’s activity log and 360 record
  4. Re-computes the risk score — incorporating AML screening, identity match status, and any fraud signals
All of this is automatic. The result lives on the entity record, not as a separate standalone report.

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What’s next