Overview
Introduction
With Solaris' APIs, you can offer a variety of banking solutions to different customer types in any of the supported countries.
This guide gives an overview of the different onboarding requirements that you must consider while integrating Solaris' solutions depending on the customer type, country, and Solaris product offering.
attention
This guide provides an overview of the different onboarding requirements. However, please note that the Solaris team will share with you the complete requirements tailored to your specific banking use case.
Customer types
Solaris currently offers banking products to the following customer types:
- Retail customers (B2C)
- Business customers (B2B) with a legal form from the supported list
- Freelancers with a valid proof of profession
Branches
Solaris offers two options for offering banking products to customers outside of Germany:
- Passporting: Solaris provisions a banking product for a customer residing outside of Germany within the European Economic Area (EEA). This product is subject to rules and regulations from BaFin, the German financial supervisory authority.
- Branching: Solaris provisions a banking product for a
customer residing within a country where Solaris has a branch, subject to
the rules of that country's financial supervisory authority. Currently,
Solaris offers branching in the following countries:
- France
- Italy
- Spain
Understanding onboarding requirements
When integrating any of Solaris' solutions, different factors affect the onboarding requirements you must fulfill before you can onboard customers. These factors include, but not limited to the following:
1. Solaris products
Each of Solaris' product comes with its own features and associated risk criteria and onboarding requirements. For example, high-risk products, such as Digital Banking, have a more strenuous onboarding flow, as they involve the establishment of a longer-term business relationship with the customer. In addition, Lending-based products have additional requirements that focus more on credit risk and eligibility.
2. Customer type
The type of customer (e.g., retail customers (B2C), businesses (B2B) or freelancers) also affects the onboarding requirements. Solaris may request additional documents and information depending on the customer type.
3. Country
The country in which you're offering the product influences the onboarding requirements, as certain countries may have different requirements than others.
How do these factors affect the onboarding requirements?
You must consider the factors described above in the following contexts:
Legal and compliance requirements
The legal and compliance requirements may also differ depending on the product, customer type, and jurisidiction.
Data collection
Depending on the customer type, country, and/or product, you may need to collect a different set of data points from the customer.
KYC method
Solaris offers different KYC methods. However, depending on your use case, you need to choose a KYC method that:
- corresponds with the product risk level,
- is supported in the relevant country, and
- is suitable to the customer type.
Onboarding process
Onboarding your customer on any of Solaris' products usually involves basic steps that are standard in the banking industry. These steps include:
| Onboarding step | Description |
|---|---|
| 1. Legal and regulatory requirements | A set of legal and regulatory requirements that you must fulfill in your onboarding flow. It typically involves collecting the customer's consent to different agreements and declarations. |
| 2. Data collection | Customer data points that you must collect in your sign-up flow and pass to Solaris. |
| 3. Tax information | Collecting tax information from your customers is mandatory in some use cases. |
| 4. Document collection | Documents you need to collect from your customers and pass to Solaris. Additional documents are usually needed either for the KYC process or credit risk and scoring processes. |
| 5. Know Your Customer (KYC) | The KYC method you can use to onboard your customers and the special considerations to consider in the KYC flow. |
| 6. Product-specific requirements | Requirements that are specific to the product you're integrating. |
| 7. Mandatory add-on features | Mandatory add-on features that you must integrate along with the main product before going live. |
The following sections outline some of the key differences in these onboarding steps according to the product, customer type, and branch.
