Trust Gate opens shop verification to wholesalers without a registered company

Until now a shop without a company number had to file a commercial registration instead, which shut out many wholesalers who have neither. The core documents every shop files are now the owner’s national ID card, a bank-book page and a photo of the shopfront or stock.

The heart of the check is that the bank-account name matches the ID. Trust Gate does not hold money for the parties, so the most useful thing it can tell a buyer is that the person they are about to pay is who they say they are.

Company certificates and VAT registration can still be filed by shops that declare those numbers. Bank documents and shop photos are seen only by the review team and are never published.