GiroIdent 2.0 Public Documentation Home

The purpose of this documentation is to provide a better understanding of the GiroIdent 2.0 (KYC) service and support for implementing it in the customers' own ecosystem. This serves as a companion to the API Swagger documentation which can be found here.

The present document covers the most recent version of the GiroIdent Service - GiroIdent 2.0. The documentation for legacy versions is found here. To ensure that you are not working with any endpoints that are due to be deprecated, please contact us via support@finapi.io.

Welcome to GiroIdent!

GiroIdent is a KYC solution, designed to perform user identity checks seamlessly. It validates the users' personal information against bank account details, and in some cases against SCHUFA identity services.

GiroIdent KYC flows

To meet the varying degrees of KYC strictness businesses must adhere to, GiroIdent currently offers four types of identity checks:

1. GiroIdent Basis: Verifies the identity of the end-user (Name) by using finAPI access to bank account capabilities.

2. GiroIdent Plus: Verifies the identity of the end-user (Name, Address, DOB) by using finAPI access to bank account capabilities and Schufa data.

3. GiroIdent GwG (§ 14 GwG - Vereinfachte Sorgfaltspflichten): Verifies the proven identity of the end user (Name, Address, DOB, Bank account) by using finAPI access to bank account capabilities and Schufa data.

4. GiroIdent GwG Total (§ 12 GwG), i.e. SCHUFA MyConnect: FinAPI offers the complete KYC flow according to § 12 GwG, including the Qualified Electronic Signature in partnership with SCHUFA.

finAPI Verifies the proven identity of the end-user (Name, Address, DOB, Bank account) by using finAPI access to bank account capabilities and Schufa data. Additionally, it allows the end-user to perform a “reference bank transfer” as requested by the § 12 GwG.

For more information please reach out to us via support@finapi.io or https://www.schufa.de/lp/myconnect/.

Throughout the documentation, we use terminology derived from the national German Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulation. Therefore, you will commonly find references to GwG (Geldwäschegesetz) and the specific articles in this law which are relevant.

These legal references are only to be understood as indications, and not conclusive for any decisions on the law applicable to your business.

GiroIdent Use Cases

GiroIdent services can be easily integrated into one of the following ways:

1. Standalone Usage: GiroIdent will handle the necessary bank interactions via the finAPI web form service. This includes Account Information Services or Payment Initiation Services. The end-user will perform all actions via the finAPI web form.

2. Usage in conjunction with other finAPI Products (e.g. Access or Data Intelligence): For customers who already use other finAPI products, there is a possibility to integrate the KYC flows seamlessly into the existing implementation. For example, GiroIdent will detect if a bank connection has already been imported for the authorized user and re-use the data included there. In such a case, the end-user will not be required to perform any additional actions to complete the GiroIdent flow.

End-user flows - finAPI web form 2.0

For all the cases where end-user interaction is required, GiroIdent relies on the standard finAPI web form (in its improved version 2.0). This includes connecting to the users' bank to perform Account Information Services or Payment Initiation Services.

The web form is designed with the end-user experience in mind and has white-labeling capabilities to support integration as seamlessly as possible into the customer application.

It can be used as a stand-alone website - here it allows redirection to the partner website for success and failure scenarios, or embedded as a web component into the partner web application.

For more information on it, please refer to the web form documentation or contact us.