TERMS AND CONDITIONS

Effective Date: 2026/09/01
Last Updated: 2026/08/28
Version: 1.002

These Terms and Conditions govern access to and use of the FICA sure platform, website, application programming interfaces, verification services, screening services, reports, software and related services.

1. PARTIES

These Terms are entered into between:

FICA sure (“FICA sure”, “we”, “us” or “our”);

and

the person, company, organisation, institution or other legal entity registering for, accessing or using FICA sure (“Client”, “you” or “your”).

If you use FICA sure on behalf of an organisation, you warrant that you have authority to bind that organisation to these Terms.

By creating an account, generating or using an API key, submitting a verification request, purchasing credits, accessing a report or otherwise using the Service, you accept these Terms.

If you do not agree to these Terms, you may not use FICA sure.

2. THE FICA SURE SERVICE

FICA sure provides technology intended to assist organisations with activities including:

customer identification and verification;
Know Your Customer (“KYC”) processes;
customer due diligence;
FICA-related verification;
anti-money laundering (“AML”) screening;
sanctions screening;
politically exposed person (“PEP”) screening;
prominent-person screening;
document analysis;
identity information comparison;
risk indicators;
verification of information supplied by a customer;
automated and AI-assisted document analysis;
watchlist and database matching;
business and legal-entity verification;
monitoring where specifically subscribed for;
API-based verification and screening; and
compliance workflow support.

The exact Services available may differ according to a Client’s account type, subscription, API environment, configuration and pricing plan.

3. FICA SURE IS A COMPLIANCE TOOL, NOT LEGAL ADVICE

FICA sure provides information and technology to assist a Client with compliance processes.

FICA sure is not a law firm, compliance officer, regulator or government authority.

Use of FICA sure does not by itself establish that a Client has complied with the Financial Intelligence Centre Act, the Protection of Personal Information Act or any other law.

The Client remains solely responsible for:

determining which laws apply to it;
establishing its own risk-based approach;
determining what customer due diligence is required;
deciding whether additional information must be obtained;
determining whether enhanced due diligence is required;
deciding whether a customer should be accepted, rejected, suspended or escalated;
filing any reports required by law;
maintaining required records;
complying with regulatory directives and guidance; and
obtaining professional legal or compliance advice where appropriate.

The FIC itself requires accountable institutions to adopt risk-based customer due diligence processes and to determine whether prospective clients are foreign prominent public officials or domestic prominent influential persons.

4. SCREENING RESULTS ARE NOT DETERMINATIVE

A FICA sure screening result is an indicator and not a conclusive legal determination.

A result such as:

CLEAR

does not guarantee that the person or entity presents no AML, terrorist-financing, sanctions, fraud, identity or other risk.

A result such as:

MATCH, POSSIBLE MATCH, PEP, REVIEW REQUIRED, SANCTIONS MATCH or another risk indicator does not automatically prove that the screened person is the person appearing in the underlying source.

Results can be affected by:

common names;
aliases;
transliteration;
spelling differences;
incomplete dates of birth;
incorrect information;
incomplete source records;
outdated information;
different national identification systems;
fuzzy matching;
changes to government lists;
delayed source updates; and
incomplete identifying data.

The Client must appropriately investigate material matches before making decisions.

5. PEP RESULTS

A PEP result does not by itself mean that a person is prohibited from becoming a customer.

PEP screening is intended to identify circumstances that may require additional risk assessment or enhanced due diligence.

The Client remains responsible for determining the appropriate action under applicable law and its own risk management and compliance programme.

6. SANCTIONS RESULTS

Sanctions screening can identify potential matches to sanctions or restricted-party information obtained from public, governmental, commercial or third-party sources.

The Client is responsible for determining:

which sanctions regimes apply to it;
whether a match is a true match;
whether a relationship or transaction is legally prohibited;
whether funds or property must be frozen;
whether a report must be made; and
whether legal or regulatory advice is required.

FICA sure does not warrant that every sanctions regime or restricted person in the world is included in every search.

7. DATA SOURCES AND THIRD-PARTY PROVIDERS

FICA sure may obtain or process information from:

public databases;
government publications;
sanctions authorities;
regulatory sources;
publicly available information;
commercial information providers;
screening providers;
identity verification providers;
technology providers;
artificial-intelligence providers;
data hosting providers; and
other third-party service providers.

FICA sure may change its data sources and service providers from time to time.

The Client acknowledges that some information available through FICA sure originates from third parties over whom FICA sure has no direct control.

FICA sure does not warrant that third-party information is complete, accurate, current or error-free.

8. CLIENT’S LAWFUL BASIS FOR PROCESSING

The Client warrants that it has a lawful basis to collect, provide, disclose and process all Personal Information submitted to FICA sure.

Where consent is required, the Client is responsible for obtaining valid consent before submitting information.

Where processing is based on another lawful ground, the Client must be able to demonstrate that ground.

The Client must appropriately notify data subjects that information may be processed for identity verification, FICA, KYC, AML, fraud-prevention, sanctions, PEP or related compliance purposes.

This is especially important because verification systems routinely process identifying information such as names, identity numbers, dates of birth, addresses and uploaded documents. Comparable South African verification platforms expressly impose similar lawful-processing obligations.

9. CLIENT INFORMATION

The Client warrants that information submitted to FICA sure will, to the best of its knowledge, be:

lawful to process;
reasonably accurate;
relevant to the requested verification;
supplied for a legitimate purpose; and
not deliberately false or misleading.

FICA sure may reject or flag information that appears fraudulent, manipulated, incomplete or inconsistent.

10. SPECIAL AND SENSITIVE INFORMATION

Verification data may include highly sensitive identifying information including:

identity numbers;
passport numbers;
photographs;
identity documents;
proof of address;
financial information;
company information;
ownership information;
information about political exposure;
sanctions results;
potentially biometric information where applicable; and
other compliance documentation.

Clients must restrict access to this information to authorised personnel.

11. POPIA

The parties must comply with the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (“POPIA”) to the extent applicable to them.

Where FICA sure processes Personal Information solely on instructions from the Client in providing the Service, the parties intend FICA sure to act as an operator in relation to that processing and the Client generally to act as the responsible party, subject to the actual circumstances and requirements of POPIA.

FICA sure may also act as a responsible party in relation to information it processes for its own legitimate operational purposes, including:

account administration;
billing;
security;
fraud prevention;
system logs;
compliance;
legal obligations; and
enforcement of these Terms.

Where appropriate, a separate Data Processing Agreement may supplement these Terms.

12. SUB-PROCESSORS

The Client authorises FICA sure to appoint third parties to assist with operation of the Service.

These may include providers of:

hosting;
cloud computing;
AI processing;
identity verification;
screening;
database services;
communications;
cybersecurity;
analytics;
payment processing; and
infrastructure.

FICA sure will take reasonable steps to ensure that service providers processing Personal Information are subject to appropriate confidentiality and data-protection obligations.

13. CROSS-BORDER PROCESSING

Some information may be processed outside the Republic of South Africa where FICA sure uses international service providers, screening databases or infrastructure.

Where required, FICA sure will implement appropriate safeguards consistent with POPIA.

The Client acknowledges that international AML and sanctions screening may inherently require access to databases or services operated outside South Africa.

Similar South African verification services expressly provide for international processing and cross-border safeguards.

14. DATA MINIMISATION

Clients must only submit information reasonably necessary for the relevant verification.

Clients must not use FICA sure as a general-purpose repository for unrelated Personal Information.

15. DOCUMENTS AND FILES

FICA sure may permit submission of documents including:

identity documents;
passports;
proof of address;
selfies or photographs;
company-registration documentation;
bank-account proof;
trust documents;
resolutions;
beneficial-ownership documentation;
supporting documents; and
other verification evidence.

Permitted formats, maximum file sizes and the number of files allowed may change from time to time.

FICA sure may refuse files that are:

unsupported;
corrupt;
infected;
unreadable;
excessively large;
malicious;
password protected where processing is impossible; or
unrelated to the verification.

16. AUTOMATED AND AI-ASSISTED PROCESSING

FICA sure may use automated systems and artificial intelligence to:

extract information from documents;
compare information;
identify inconsistencies;
classify documents;
assess document quality;
generate risk indicators;
identify possible manipulation;
consolidate profile information; and
support verification decisions.

Automated results can be incorrect.

Where a result materially affects a customer, the Client should apply appropriate human oversight and review where required by law or reasonably appropriate in the circumstances.

17. FALSE POSITIVES AND FALSE NEGATIVES

The Client acknowledges that no screening system can guarantee zero false positives or zero false negatives.

FICA sure will use reasonable efforts to provide useful screening results, but does not warrant that:

every relevant person will be identified;
every match is correct;
every data source is current;
all aliases are known;
every record contains complete identifiers; or
an individual not identified by the Service presents no risk.

This limitation is important and is also expressly reflected in the terms of major AML screening providers.

18. ACCOUNTS

Clients may be required to create an account.

The Client is responsible for:

safeguarding passwords;
safeguarding API credentials;
managing authorised users;
promptly revoking access for former personnel;
notifying FICA sure of suspected unauthorised access; and
all activity carried out through its credentials.

19. API KEYS

API keys are confidential credentials.

A Client must not:

expose an API key in public client-side code;
publish an API key;
share a key with unauthorised persons;
commit keys to public repositories;
sell or transfer keys;
attempt to derive another Client’s key; or
circumvent test/live environment restrictions.

FICA sure may revoke or rotate an API key where it reasonably believes the key has been compromised or misused.

20. TEST AND LIVE ENVIRONMENTS

FICA sure may provide separate test and production environments.

Test results may:

use simulated datasets;
use sandbox providers;
behave differently from production;
contain deliberately synthetic matches; or
not represent an actual live screening result.

Test keys must not be treated as live credentials.

21. CREDITS, FEES AND BILLING

Services may be charged using:

credits;
subscriptions;
per-request pricing;
packages;
negotiated enterprise pricing; or
another pricing model published or agreed by FICA sure.

Prices may change from time to time.

Unless otherwise stated:

credits have no cash redemption value;
credits cannot be transferred between unrelated Client accounts;
applicable taxes may be added;
credits may be reserved when processing commences;
credits may be charged upon successful processing; and
technical failures may result in release or reversal of reserved credits according to the applicable billing rules.

22. NO GUARANTEED RESULT

Payment for a verification does not guarantee that a customer will pass FICA verification.

Charges relate to the processing and screening service performed, not to a favourable outcome.

23. SERVICE AVAILABILITY

FICA sure seeks to provide reliable availability but does not guarantee uninterrupted access unless expressly agreed in a separate Service Level Agreement.

Service may be interrupted because of:

maintenance;
security incidents;
upstream provider outages;
network failures;
government or third-party database availability;
software updates;
force majeure; or
circumstances beyond reasonable control.

24. CHANGES TO THIRD-PARTY SERVICES

A screening or verification source may change, suspend or terminate its service without FICA sure’s control.

FICA sure may replace, remove or modify such integrations.

25. RETENTION

Information will be retained according to:

applicable law;
regulatory requirements;
contractual obligations;
legitimate operational requirements;
FICA sure’s Privacy Policy; and
applicable Client configuration.

Data will not necessarily be deleted immediately when an account is closed if retention is required by law or reasonably required for security, audit, billing, dispute resolution or legal purposes.

26. SECURITY

FICA sure will implement reasonable technical and organisational safeguards appropriate to the nature of the information processed.

No computer system is completely secure.

FICA sure therefore does not guarantee that unauthorised access, cyberattack or data loss can never occur.

27. SECURITY INCIDENTS

Where a security compromise materially affecting Client Personal Information occurs, FICA sure will take reasonable steps to investigate, contain and address the incident and will provide legally required notifications.

28. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

All rights in FICA sure’s:

software;
source code;
databases created by FICA sure;
website;
interfaces;
API design;
documentation;
graphics;
trademarks;
branding;
processes; and
proprietary technology

remain owned by FICA sure or its licensors.

No ownership rights are transferred to the Client.

29. CLIENT DATA

As between FICA sure and the Client, the Client retains its rights in information lawfully supplied by it, subject to the rights necessary for FICA sure to process that information to provide the Service and meet legal obligations.

30. REPORTS

FICA sure may produce verification reports, API results, screening records or other outputs.

Reports may be retained by the Client for legitimate compliance and recordkeeping purposes.

A Client may not commercially resell, publish, aggregate or create a competing database from underlying FICA sure data except where expressly authorised in writing.

31. PROHIBITED USE

The Client may not use FICA sure:

unlawfully;
for stalking or harassment;
to unlawfully discriminate;
for unauthorised surveillance;
for identity theft;
to impersonate another person;
to obtain information without lawful authority;
to create unlawful profiling databases;
to scrape the Service;
to reverse-engineer the Service;
to bypass security;
to test stolen identity data;
to submit malware;
to access another Client’s information;
to circumvent usage limits;
to resell the Service without permission; or
to interfere with the operation of the Service.

32. CREDIT, EMPLOYMENT AND OTHER REGULATED DECISIONS

FICA sure is primarily a FICA/KYC/AML verification and screening tool.

Unless expressly agreed and legally permitted, the Service must not be used as a substitute for:

a credit bureau report;
employment background screening requiring separate legal authority;
insurance underwriting;
medical assessment; or
another regulated decision system.

33. SUSPENSION

FICA sure may suspend access where reasonably necessary because of:

suspected fraud;
security risk;
unpaid amounts;
legal or regulatory requirements;
misuse;
excessive system abuse;
API attacks;
unlawful processing;
violation of these Terms; or
risk to FICA sure or another Client.

Where reasonably possible, notice will be provided.

34. TERMINATION

Either party may terminate according to the applicable subscription or commercial agreement.

FICA sure may immediately terminate or suspend service for material breach, unlawful use or serious security risk.

Termination does not extinguish accrued payment obligations, confidentiality obligations, intellectual-property rights, data-retention duties or provisions intended to survive termination.

35. CONFIDENTIALITY

Each party must take reasonable steps to protect confidential information received from the other.

Confidential information may be disclosed where legally required.

36. WARRANTIES

Except for warranties that cannot lawfully be excluded, the Service is supplied “as is” and “as available.”

FICA sure does not warrant that:

the Service will always be available;
every search will return a result;
every result is correct;
every source is current;
every database is complete;
all fraud will be identified;
every false document will be detected;
every sanctioned person will be detected;
every PEP will be detected; or
use of the Service guarantees regulatory compliance.

37. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY

To the maximum extent permitted by law, FICA sure will not be liable for indirect, consequential, incidental or special loss, including:

loss of profit;
loss of revenue;
loss of business opportunity;
reputational damage;
loss arising from a Client’s onboarding decision;
third-party claims caused by Client misuse; or
decisions based solely on a screening result.

Subject to applicable law and any separately agreed enterprise agreement, FICA sure’s aggregate liability arising from the Service should be limited to the fees actually paid by the Client to FICA sure during the [three/six/twelve] months preceding the event giving rise to the claim.

Have your attorney choose the appropriate cap before publishing this provision.

38. INDEMNITY

To the extent permitted by law, the Client indemnifies FICA sure against third-party claims arising from:

unlawful information submitted by the Client;
lack of a lawful processing basis;
violation of data-subject rights;
Client misuse of screening results;
unlawful customer rejection;
violation of applicable law;
infringement of another person’s rights; or
unauthorised use of the Client’s account caused by failure to safeguard credentials.

39. FORCE MAJEURE

Neither party will be liable for failure caused by events beyond its reasonable control, including telecommunications failure, infrastructure outages, war, civil disturbance, government action, natural disaster, widespread cyber incidents or failures of essential upstream services.

40. CHANGES

FICA sure may update these Terms from time to time.

Material changes will be communicated by reasonable means where appropriate.

Continued use after the effective date of revised Terms constitutes acceptance, subject to applicable law.

41. GOVERNING LAW

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of South Africa.

42. JURISDICTION

Subject to any mandatory law, disputes will be subject to the jurisdiction of the appropriate courts of the Republic of South Africa.

43. ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS

The Client consents to receiving service, account, billing and security communications electronically.

44. SEVERABILITY

If any provision is invalid or unenforceable, the remaining provisions remain effective.

45. NO WAIVER

Failure to enforce a provision does not constitute waiver of that provision.

46. ENTIRE AGREEMENT

These Terms, the Privacy Policy, applicable Data Processing Agreement, pricing terms and any separately signed agreement constitute the agreement governing use of FICA sure.

Where a signed commercial agreement expressly conflicts with these Terms, the signed agreement prevails to the extent of the conflict.

47. ENQUIRIES

FICA sure
Website: ficasure.com
General enquiries: enquiries@ficasure.com
Privacy enquiries: enquiries@ficasure.com
Security reports: help@ficasure.com