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Every marketplace carries the same problem: you take responsibility for strangers transacting with strangers. TrustVerify verifies sellers at onboarding, screens them for as long as they trade, and holds funds in escrow when a deal looks risky.
Marketplace fraud has always cost money. What changed is that knowing who your sellers are stopped being a commercial choice and became a legal one, with dates attached.
Under the UK rules for digital platform reporting, marketplaces must collect and verify information about their sellers — legal name, address, tax identification number and the consideration paid to each seller, quarter by quarter — and report it to HMRC after the end of each calendar year.
Almost all of that seller data is the same data an identity or business verification check already produces. Collecting it once, at onboarding, is far cheaper than reconstructing it from transaction history later.
TrustVerify does not file returns with HMRC for you. The obligation stays with the platform; our part is verifying who the seller is and keeping an auditable record of every check.
Marketplaces that let users list, review and message one another are user-to-user services. Where such a service is likely to be accessed by children, Ofcom expects age assurance that is highly effective — not a self-declared date of birth on a signup form.
Age assurance is built on top of document-based identity verification rather than beside it, so the onboarding flow you choose now decides how much rework the duty costs you later.
Which duties apply depends on your service and your content. Talk to us before you build, and we will be straight about which parts we cover today and which need a specialist provider.
The reportable period for platform reporting is the calendar year and the return is due by 31 January that follows it. Because the due diligence has to be finished before the period closes, the deadline that actually binds an engineering team is 31 December, not 31 January.
Four checks cover the marketplace problem end to end. Take one, or take all four behind a single integration.
Confirm a seller is a real, uniquely identified person from a government-issued document and a live selfie, before they can list or take payment.
Check a registered company against the official registry, confirm its directors, and identify the people who ultimately own or control it.
Screen sellers against sanctions, watchlist and politically exposed person data at onboarding, and keep watching them for as long as they trade on your platform.
Hold the buyer's money until delivery is confirmed on the transactions that warrant it. Funds are settled through escrow.com, never held by TrustVerify.
Spot the signals that a seller account is not what it appears to be — device and browser fingerprinting, proxy and VPN detection, and IP reputation, checked at sign-up and at login.
Building the integration yourself? The API reference and the developer guides cover every check on this page, and there is a sandbox you can call before you sign anything.
One integration covers onboarding and settlement, so a seller is checked once and the result follows them through every transaction on your platform.
Send a seller to a hosted verification link, or embed the flow in your own onboarding with the API. Nothing else in your product has to change.
The document and selfie are verified for an individual seller; the company registry, directors and beneficial owners are checked for a business.
Screening results and risk signals are returned to your platform as a clear outcome — approve, review or decline — with the evidence behind it retained for audit.
Where a transaction warrants protection, the buyer's funds are held by escrow.com and released once the delivery conditions are met.
Selling physical goods as well as running a marketplace? The e-commerce overview covers checkout and chargeback protection, and there are prebuilt integrations for Shopify and WooCommerce.
Begin on pay as you go and verify sellers one at a time. Move to a monthly plan when onboarding becomes routine. Per-check prices are charged on completed checks and exclude VAT.
For marketplaces verifying their first sellers.
For marketplaces onboarding sellers every week.
For high-volume and multi-region marketplaces.
Usage is billed per completed check on top of the monthly plan fee.
| Check | Starter | Growth | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|
| Identity verification (KYC) | £0.75 | £0.55 | Volume pricing |
| Business verification (KYB) | £1.20 | £0.85 | Volume pricing |
| Ongoing sanctions and watchlist monitoring | On request | On request | On request |
| Escrow on flagged transactions | On request | On request | On request |
The Growth platform fee is £199 per month; verification checks are billed separately, from the first check. Ongoing sanctions monitoring and escrow settlement are in development, are not billed, and are marked coming soon above. Escrow is settled through escrow.com, so its fee follows escrow.com's own published schedule and is confirmed with your quote. See the escrow overview for how settlement works, or the full price list for plans outside marketplaces.
We are working with a small number of marketplaces to shape how seller verification and settlement should work in practice. Founding members help decide what we ship next and agree their commercial terms up front rather than at renewal. Places are limited and taken by application.
Thirty minutes with our team, walking through your seller flow and where verification, screening and escrow would sit in it. No slides unless you want them.