# Know Your Business
source: https://developer.mastercard.com/places/documentation/use-cases/use-know-your-business/index.md

Unpacking a merchant's identity is a fundamental commercial need that extends well beyond regulatory obligation. Across industries, businesses have a wide range of reasons to verify merchant identity:

* Confirming that a merchant operates in the right category before onboarding them to a program
* Identifying which merchants are active within a specific geography
* Filtering merchant networks by business type
* Pulling foundational firmographics about a merchant for identity verification
* Protecting brand reputation by avoiding association with illegitimate entities
* Creating clear, auditable records of how commercial relationships were assessed and approved

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The Places API helps organizations search for merchant locations, retrieve detailed business attributes, and compare applicant-provided information against known merchant records. This information can be incorporated into onboarding, Know Your Business (KYB), risk, and compliance processes to support more informed business verification decisions.

### Where it applies {#where-it-applies}

Various industry segments use enrichment-powered KYB processes for:

* **Identity Verification Companies** augment their capabilities with payment-derived insights.
* **Loyalty \& Rewards Providers** filter and verify merchants by category and location eligibility before admitting them to a program.
* **Agentic Commerce Platforms** verify the merchant behind every agent-initiated transaction in real time -- ensuring correct merchant, category, and location before a purchase is completed on a user's behalf.
* **Embedded Finance \& BNPL Platforms** confirm merchant eligibility by category and location before enabling financing at checkout, ensuring credit products are only activated at verified, eligible merchant entities.
* **Financial Institutions \& Acquirers** identify merchants operating within a specific region, category, or segment for portfolio analysis, reward programs, and more.

## Relevant Endpoints {#relevant-endpoints}

[Places Search](https://developer.mastercard.com/places/documentation/api-reference/index.md#tag/Places/operation/searchPlacesUsingPOST)
Places Search can be used to discover merchant locations based on geographic or business criteria. Developers can search using inputs such as latitude and longitude, a search radius, merchant name, merchant category, or location information like city, state, or country. The response returns matching merchant locations along with their unique Location IDs, which can be used in downstream workflows or passed to Places Details to retrieve additional information about a specific merchant location.

[Location ID Lookup](https://developer.mastercard.com/places/documentation/api-reference/index.md#tag/Places/operation/getPlaceByLocationIdUsingGET)
Use a 'Location ID' obtained from Mastercard solutions such as Merchant Identifier to retrieve additional information about a merchant location. Places Details provides access to enriched merchant attributes, including business information, location details, merchant categorization, and other location intelligence that can be used to enhance customer experiences and support downstream business workflows.

## How it works {#how-it-works}

Diagram placesFindAllPlaces

## Useful Links {#useful-links}

* [View the full Open API Specification](https://developer.mastercard.com/places/documentation/api-reference/index.md)
* [Review the APIs error responses](https://developer.mastercard.com/places/documentation/codes-and-formats/index.md)