Customers & KYC

Everything in Cortex hangs off a customer: the party record (often called the CIF, the customer information file). This page covers taking a customer on, the risk-based KYC tiers, upgrading a customer's tier, and screening.

Where: the Customer Ops group (onboarding, parties, documents, channel enrolments) and the Risk & Compliance group (screening).

Onboarding a customer

Customer Ops → Onboarding. Onboarding is a stepper that saves each step on the server, so Back and Next never lose data. The steps adapt to whether the customer is a person or an organisation:

1. Start: a new customer, or resume an in-progress one.
2. Identity: the person or organisation's details.
3. Related parties: directors, owners, beneficial owners (organisations).
4. Identifications: national ID, passport and the like.
5. Contacts: phone, email, address.
6. Documents: drag and drop. A checklist shows what the customer's tier requires versus what is present, with a completeness bar.
7. Screening: sanctions and PEP screening runs automatically; you see the result and record a disposition.
8. Review & activate: a read-only summary with any remaining blockers called out.

The customer file (Customer Ops → Parties → a party) is a tabbed page: Profile, IDs, Addresses, Contacts, Related. From here you can record a KYC decision, block or unblock the customer, and close the file.

CDD tiers

Cortex applies risk-based customer due diligence in three tiers. The tier decides what information and documents are required, how screening is applied, and (by design) what products and limits the customer may hold.

	Simplified	Standard	Enhanced (EDD)
For	Low-risk, low-value; financial inclusion	Normal retail and SME	High-risk: PEPs, high value, complex ownership, high-risk jurisdictions
Required data	Person/org detail, one ID, one contact	+ residential / registered address	+ financial profile / source of funds
Required documents	National ID	National ID + proof of address	+ KYC form and source-of-funds evidence
Screening	At onboarding	+ periodic re-screening	+ adverse-media, senior sign-off on hits

An officer changes a customer's tier from the party file; the required-document checklist for the new tier is shown so you know what must be collected.

Not yet built: unified tier limits

The balances, products and transaction limits each tier allows are documented as an intended policy but are not yet enforced by a single limits engine. Today, limits are applied per module (channel, product, lending, cards). Treat any tier-limit figures as illustrative until the unified engine ships. Maker-checker sign-off on Enhanced (EDD) onboarding, and scheduled periodic KYC refresh, are likewise planned rather than live.

KYC upgrades

Customer Ops → KYC upgrades is the review queue for customers who have asked to move up a tier (for example Standard → Enhanced), typically from the customer portal.

Open a request and you see the tier change, a document checklist (each item marked missing, present or verified) and the customer's uploaded documents. Work through them:

1. Open each document and verify it (requires the verify permission).
2. Approve the upgrade, enabled only once the checklist is complete. The customer's tier and limits are lifted.
3. Or reject it with a note explaining why.

If the request is not yet ready to decide, the system refuses the decision rather than letting you approve an incomplete file.

Screening & compliance

Risk & Compliance → Screening runs sanctions, PEP and watchlist checks and records dispositions. Screening runs automatically during onboarding and, for Standard and Enhanced customers, periodically thereafter. A hit does not silently block the customer; it is dispositioned by a compliance officer, with senior sign-off required for Enhanced cases.

Roles that do this work

Task	Permission	Typical role
Run onboarding	onboarding:process	CSR, Operations Officer
Read / maintain a customer	customer:read, customer:write	CSR, Operations Officer
Decide a KYC upgrade	customer:kyc-decide	Compliance Officer
Verify a document	document:verify	Compliance Officer
Screen / disposition	compliance:screen, compliance:disposition	Compliance Officer

Key terms

CIF / party

The customer's master record. One customer, one file, reused everywhere.

CDD tier

The risk-based due-diligence level (Simplified, Standard or Enhanced) that sets what is required.

Disposition

The recorded decision on a screening hit (for example, false positive, escalate).

Related party / UBO

A director, owner or ultimate beneficial owner attached to an organisation customer.