# Credit Issuance Process

* After a project has been approved, credits can be issued for 1 or more monitoring events. Monitoring events are set during project proposal and approved by the third party Validator during project validation.
* On a monitored event date, a data input request is automatically generated. Data can be submitted manually or via API by the project developer or MRV provider, depending on the project design.
* Credits will only be issued **ex-post** i.e. after a monitoring event has taken place, and **all data must be verified** before issuance.
  * See the section '[Data Verification](https://open-carbon-protocol.gitbook.io/ocp-handbook/projects/third-party-validation-and-verification#data-verification)' for more details on the options for data verification.
* Once data has been inputted and verified, the associated number of credits is calculated and issued to the Project Developer account.
* We require KYB for all owners of credits, both for internal governance and tracking. [For more information, see the KYB explanation from our KYB provider, Middesk.](https://www.middesk.com/blog/know-your-business-kyb-identity-verification-explained)

### Credit Information

* Each credit has the associated information assigned to it:
  * **Credit batch** (each credit within a batch is fungible if they have (a) the same issuance event, (b) the same ownership/transfer history, and (c) the same status
  * **Project Information** (ID, Project Name, Project Developer, Dates, Location, Sector + Sub-Sector)
  * **Account Owner**
    * If different, **Beneficial Owner** is also displayed
  * **Issuance Event**
  * **Status:**
    * Active (after a credit has been validated and issued and is available for transfer)
    * Retired (after a credit has been retired; no further action can be taken)
    * Cancelled (if a project has been removed or stopped on the OCP registry, no further action can taken, and it cannot be claimed as part of an offset or BVCM claim)
* Anyone can trace a credit throughout its lifecycle- including ownership details, whether it has been validated, when it was retired, transferred, or canceled, via the ['](https://pilot.ocp.earth/registry)[Activity' tab on the OCP Registry](https://pilot.ocp.earth/registry).

### Credit Transfer

* Any User with carbon credits in their inventory can transfer those carbon credits to another account by requesting a transfer on the OCP platform. 
* The project developer sets the price of the credits upon requesting a transfer. 
* These credits will be given the status 'on hold' during the transfer process, and cannot be transferred or retired until the process is completed.
* The first transfer of credit is subject to a transaction fee based on the credit transfer quantity and price sold. This fee must be paid to the OCP before the credit is transferred to the new inventory.
* In order to receive the transfer, the buyer account must have undergone KYB.  [For more information, see the KYB explanation from our KYB provider, Middesk.](https://www.middesk.com/blog/know-your-business-kyb-identity-verification-explained)