Your credentials explained
A breakdown of every credential type in VERA — what each one proves, what data it contains, and how contacts verify it.
Personal credentials
These credentials are issued to you as an individual and live in your personal workspace wallet.
Person ID Credential
Issued after completing personal identity verification (KYC). This is the foundational individual credential on VERA — most other features and credentials require it first. It confirms your legal name, that you passed a document scan and liveness check, and that your identity is linked to your VERA account.
Person Bank Account Credential
Issued after verifying a South African bank account against your personal identity through an AVS (Account Verification Service) check. Confirms that a specific bank account belongs to you as a verified individual. Your Person ID Credential must be issued first before you can earn this one.
Business credentials
These credentials are issued to your organisation and live in your organisation workspace wallet.
Business ID Credential
Issued after completing business identity verification (KYB). The foundational business credential on VERA — required before your organisation can share verified credentials with contacts. It confirms your company is a registered legal entity, with the following fields verified directly against CIPC records:
- Commercial Name
- Registration Number
- Commercial Type (e.g. Private Company)
- Commercial Status (e.g. In Business)
- Registration Date
- Tax Number
- Country of Registration
- Verified Against Source (CONTACTABLE | CIPC)
- Source Verification Date
Bank Account Credential
Issued after verifying a South African bank account against your business identity. Confirms that a specific account belongs to your verified organisation. Your Business ID Credential must be issued first.
Personal and business credentials are completely separate. Your Person Bank Account Credential lives in your personal workspace; your organisation's Bank Account Credential lives in the organisation workspace. Contacts see whichever set of credentials corresponds to the workspace they are connected with.
How sharing works
When you share a credential with a contact, you're not sending a PDF or a screenshot — you're sharing a verifiable presentation. This is a cryptographically signed package that lets the recipient verify the credential's authenticity for themselves, without needing to contact VERA or the issuer.
The recipient can independently confirm:
- The credential was signed by the stated issuer and hasn't been modified
- The issuer hasn't revoked it since it was issued
- The credential was issued to your account specifically — not copied from someone else
Shared credentials appear in the contact's Trust Vault and can be re-verified at any time.
A contact viewing your Trust Vault only sees credentials you've made visible to connections. Sharing additional credentials in a conversation — for example, in response to a verification request — requires your explicit action each time.
Verifying a credential is genuine
Every credential has a Verify button. Clicking it runs three checks automatically:
- Signature check — confirms the credential was signed by the stated issuer and hasn't been tampered with since
- Revocation check — confirms the issuer hasn't withdrawn this credential
- Holder binding check — confirms the credential was issued to this specific account, not transferred from another
If all three checks pass, the credential is genuine. If any check fails, the credential should not be trusted and it will fail relevant checks.