Publicly traded companies are not required to provide beneficial ownership information, but the ticker symbol for the company must be provided. Most companies are privately held (meaning they are not listed on a major stock exchange) and will need to complete some additional fields in the Boost application including providing a social security number, birth date and an address (as provided on a driver’s license) for a beneficial owner or control manager. Boost Payment Solutions partners with regulated financial services institutions and, as such, we are required to obtain this information from all privately held companies to comply with Anti-Money Laundering (AML)/ Know Your Customer (KYC)/ Financial Crimes Reporting requirements via the Bank Secrecy Act, USA Patriot Act, and Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FINCEN) regulations. To confirm, this information is not used for any purpose by Boost other than to meet federal regulations. These regulations apply to the set up of all merchant processing accounts and any new merchant processing or bank account will require the same information to be provided. In fact, any company that has opened any merchant processing or bank account since May 11, 2018 would have been required to provide this information.
Most companies elect to provide the information required from a “control manager” rather than a beneficial owner, which is sometimes difficult to capture. A control manager can be a manager in the company’s accounting or finance group.
Here are a few links that explain why Boost is required to obtain this information:
https://www.fincen.gov/news/news-releases/fincen-reminds-financial-institutions-cdd-rule-becomes-effective-today
https://www.fincen.gov/sites/default/files/2018-04/FinCEN_Guidance_CDD_FAQ_FINAL_508_2.pdf
Boost maintains strict protocols for information and data security as well as confidentiality and privacy. As noted above, we are subject to FINCEN (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network) and Anti-Money Laundering rules and are required to maintain specific PII (Personal Identifiable Information) as per government mandate.
We hope you understand our requirement to gather this information and will complete the fields in the application so we can complete the setup of your Boost account.