Germany - Nordiska Embedded

This page covers what is specific to onboarding customers in Germany. The API, the onboarding states and the webhooks are the same in every market; see Card Onboarding for those.

Legal Forms

Each German legal form maps to an onboardingType and a type value in the request. Businesses set company.registrationInfo.businessType; corporates set company.companyType.

Legal form	`onboardingType`	Type value	Identified by
Individual	`CONSUMER`	–	Applicant
Freelancer (Freiberufler)	`BUSINESS`	`FREELANCER`	Tax number
Small business (Kleingewerbe)	`BUSINESS`	`SMALL_BUSINESS`	Tax number
GbR	`BUSINESS`	`UNREGISTERED_CIVIL_LAW_PARTNERSHIP`	Tax number
Registered merchant (e.K.)	`BUSINESS`	`REGISTERED_MERCHANT`	Commercial register number
OHG	`BUSINESS`	`GENERAL_PARTNERSHIP`	Commercial register number
KG	`BUSINESS`	`LIMITED_PARTNERSHIP`	Commercial register number
PartG, PartG mbB	`BUSINESS`	`PARTNERSHIP`	Partnership register number
GmbH	`CORPORATE`	`LIMITED_COMPANY`	Commercial register number
UG (haftungsbeschränkt)	`CORPORATE`	`ENTREPRENEURIAL_COMPANY`	Commercial register number
AG	`CORPORATE`	`STOCK_CORPORATION`	Commercial register number
KGaA	`CORPORATE`	`PARTNERSHIP_LIMITED_BY_SHARES`	Commercial register number
SE	`CORPORATE`	`EUROPEAN_COMPANY`	Commercial register number
eG	`CORPORATE`	`COOPERATIVE`	Cooperative register number
GmbH & Co. KG	`CORPORATE`	`CORPORATE_LIMITED_PARTNERSHIP`	Commercial register number

Legal forms without a register entry (freelancer, small business and GbR) are identified by tax number, and the applicant always uploads documents for them.

Onboarding Flows by Legal Form

Every onboarding starts in PROCESSING and ends in COMPLETED, REJECTED or FAILED. The states in between depend on the legal form.

Consumer
Registered business
Freelancer and small business
GbR
Corporate

The applicant is identified and credit-scored. Nothing is uploaded.

A GbR appears in no register, so the applicant uploads the partnership agreement and a tax document, which are reviewed before signing. Signing completes once every partner has signed. The PRIMARY_SIGNING_COMPLETED webhook fires when the first one has.

GmbH, UG, AG, KGaA, SE, eG and & Co. KG forms take one of three paths out of PROCESSING: straight to signing, through a document upload and review when the company data isn’t enough to decide on credit, or through a manual review that a person has to clear.

A technical error can end the onboarding in FAILED from PROCESSING, AWAITING_SIGNING or AWAITING_CARD_CREATION.

Credit Checks

Individuals: Credit assessment through Schufa.
Businesses: Creditreform checks the company. The credit decision follows the applicant’s Schufa score, because the owner is personally liable.
Corporates: Creditreform checks the company, and the credit decision comes from the company’s data.

Signing

Customers sign the credit agreement with a Qualified Electronic Signature (QES), in German or English. Set the applicant’s locale to de or en.

Test Cases

The test environment has German test companies and identities for every flow above. See Test Cases.

​Legal Forms

​Onboarding Flows by Legal Form

​Credit Checks

​Signing

​Test Cases

Legal Forms

Onboarding Flows by Legal Form

Credit Checks

Signing

Test Cases