# Counterparties

A counterparty represents an originator (ultimate sender) or beneficiary (ultimate receiver) of a payment. Counterparties can be individuals or businesses. Counterparties are associated to Accounts and belong to a Workspace. 

 

Registering counterparties in advance of submitting payments enables OFAC (sanctions) screening and helps meet regulatory requirements. To comply with Travel Rule obligations, counterparty information will be recorded for stablecoin payouts and be included in payment instructions sent to fiat off-ramps.



\*Note: Tesser does not conduct KYC or KYB verification on counterparties. Organizations must have completed KYC/KYB verification of originator counterparties prior to registering them with the Tesser platform.



To meet regulatory obligations and maintain consistency of data requirements, Tesser requires the following fields to be supplied about counterparties for registration: 

<Tabs>
  <TabItem label="Individuals">
    **Required Fields**
    - Legal name (first name and last name)
    - Physical address (legal street address, no P.O. Boxes or virtual addresses)

    **Optional Fields**
    - Date of birth
    - National identification number (Passport, ID card number, Tax Identification number, Social Security Number)
  </TabItem>
  <TabItem label="Businesses">
    **Required Fields**
    - Legal entity name
    - Physical address (legal street address, no P.O. Boxes or virtual addresses)
    - Legal entity identifier. Legal entity identifier may be a registration number or tax ID. \*Required only for counterparties who will be originators of fiat payouts.

    **Optional Fields**
    - Doing business as (DBA) or Trade name
    - Legal entity identifier (for beneficiaries)
  </TabItem>
</Tabs>

> If you did not supply required data during registration that is required in order to send a payment, you will receive an error indicating the missing data. You can update the counterparty record and then retry the payment.