What is different
Funding first
Kano Textiles holds a virtual NGN account: a real-shaped NUBAN, generated deterministically with a valid check digit, so a Nigerian bank transfer to it looks like any other bank transfer.The NUBAN is Nigeria’s 10-digit scheme: a 3-digit bank code plus a 9-digit serial, with a weighted check digit. Arc generates structurally valid identifiers rather than placeholder strings, so a payout looks like a payout and a tampered digit fails validation. Same for IBANs, which carry real mod-97 check digits per ISO 13616.
Both sides of the funding. Arc gains an asset, naira sitting at a partner bank, and simultaneously owes Kano Textiles the same amount. Pairing them is what makes “do we hold what we owe in NGN?” answerable.
The approval flow
The maker cannot be the checker. The queue enforces that the second approver is a distinct actor from the first: a check that is trivial to write and the single most common way maker–checker is quietly defeated in practice.
requiresSecondApproval returns false immediately for personal accounts. A consumer sending money to family should not need a second approver, and encoding that as an early return keeps the intent obvious at the call site rather than buried in a policy table.
Compliance, at enterprise scale
The same three checks, weighted differently.KYB and the UBO graph
KYB and the UBO graph
Ownership is resolved as a graph, not a list. Kano Textiles is owned by two holding companies, one of which is owned by three individuals. The beneficial owners are those individuals: none of whom appear on the first form anyone filled in.Every resolved UBO is screened against the sanctions list, not just the operating company. An entity screening clean while its ultimate owner does not is exactly the case the graph exists to catch.
AML rules on a business pattern
AML rules on a business pattern
Enterprise flows look nothing like consumer flows, and the rules score accordingly. Large, infrequent, invoice-shaped payments to a small set of established suppliers are normal here and would be alarming from a personal account.What raises the score to 31: NG→DE is a corridor this account uses only a few times a year, and €48,000 is well above its median. Neither is close to
reviewAt. What would trip it: a sudden series of transfers to a new beneficiary, or counterparty concentration shifting sharply within a window.Tier 3 and source of funds
Tier 3 and source of funds
Kano Textiles is Tier 3: unlimited per-transfer ceiling, with a second approver required above €100,000. Reaching Tier 3 required a source-of-funds document on top of the Tier 2 set.This transfer is below €100,000, so the second approver here is required by enterprise policy, not by the tier threshold. Both paths exist and they compose.
The journals
Same five steps, mirrored direction. Abbreviated to the shape, since the consumer flow walks each in full.- reserve
- swap
- settle
- payout
The rail decision that would have cost a day
SEPA offers Arc two out-rails for EUR, and picking the wrong one has an asymmetric cost.Missing a batch rail’s cut-off by an hour costs a day, not an hour: the queued payment starts from the next opening and then takes the rail’s normal latency. That compounding is asserted by a test that checks the exact arithmetic, not assumed.
For an invoice due Friday submitted Thursday afternoon, that distinction is the whole product. The cut-off that cost a day →
Where the money ended up
Total cost to Kano Textiles: roughly 0.46% of the invoice: materially cheaper than the consumer rate, because the fixed component is amortised over a much larger amount and the corridor fee is basis-point based. That asymmetry is real and is why enterprise and consumer are different products over one set of rails.
A reversal, in full
What happens when the supplier’s IBAN is closed and the payout is rejected.
Risk and compliance
KYB, the UBO graph, and the four-eyes queue in detail.