As the cost and complexity of Know Your Customer (KYC) compliance continues to grow, access to high quality, standardised data is paramount to help banks align their KYC compliance programmes.
The KYC challenge
Now more than ever, banks are looking to streamline their KYC processes for business to continue to thrive, whilst satisfying mounting regulatory demands. And one of the biggest challenges is the lack of a common standard - with different banks asking for different documents and information.
How can KYC address your business needs?
Unlike working bilaterally with vendors or consultants in this space, the use of utilities enables banks to drive standardisation in KYC and AML compliance.
A more standardised approach to KYC compliance makes perfect sense – a view shared by HSBC and J.P. Morgan. Both banks were both looking for a formal process to refresh due diligence with a number of key benefits.
- Consistent: Banks provide a single set of data in a standardised format.
- Efficient: Reduce unnecessary time in collecting due diligence research on counterparties.
- Self-service: Instead of replying to incoming requests individually, banks can give counterparties access to their data – enabling them to collect information themselves.
- Centralised: Banks can leverage the Registry to centralise the processing of inbound and outbound KYC requests.
- Customer focused: New customers are onboarded faster, and existing customers enjoy a more streamlined process for updating their data.
Swift was the leader in developing a KYC utility for banks, and the KYC Registry has been the most successful utility in this area.