Meet KYC Compliance Head-On

With complex regulatory regimes, rising security and fraud threats, and large volumes of data getting more and more difficult for your teams to look through, it’s a prime time to think about automating your know-your-customer (KYC) checks and, once you’ve onboarded your new customer, critical processes such as anti-money laundering (AML) checks.

We’re your guide to KYC automation and how to do it right. Here are the top things to know about how digital workers can perform your KYC processes:

• They run 24/7.
• They don’t make keying mistakes.
• They speed up turnround times and minimize wait times.
• They free up risk and compliance professionals for higher-value contributions.
• They provide full keystroke-level auditability.
• They give you accurate, real-time performance reports.

With IA, you can build tailored workflows for specific KYC solutions to keep your employees from burning out.

What Is KYC Automation?

KYC automation uses intelligent automation (IA) to deploy a digital workforce into your business processes. It’s about building a new kind of workforce through cognitive technology, which will relieve your staff from repetitive tasks so they can get back to higher-value work.

There are various types of banking automation, but within your KYC processes, it’s critical to find an automation solution that doesn’t only reduce error-prone manual data entry, but also analyzes large data sets to check for anomalies and flag potentially suspicious behavior. Because as critical as these functions are, they can be easily missed in manual KYC checks when you’re using multiple systems and spreadsheets across time zones and jurisdictions.

What are the use cases for KYC automation?

There are many IA use cases in banking and financial services and other industries. IA’s got your back, from the customer onboarding process through to identity verification processes and remediating existing customers. It ensures your organization can perform risk screening and customer due diligence (CDD) more accurately and quickly by integrating your system with other databases, sharing consistent data and ensuring everything is tracked. This speeds up the entire KYC process, reduces risk and improves customer experience by minimizing their wait times.

Your automated KYC procedure for onboarding a new customer includes:

• Collecting data: The customer takes a photo of their ID or an employee scans it into the system before a digital worker takes over.
• Verifying documents and identity: ML algorithms analyze any uploaded documents to ensure their authenticity. The system then scans the user’s submitted ID to confirm their identity.
• Risk assessments: The system checks the databases and watch lists to identify potential risks and ensure regulatory compliance. If extra due diligence (EDD) is required, then digital workers can check for adverse events and social media profiles

What can intelligent automation do in financial services?

In financial services automation, IA combines robotic process automation (RPA) to automate tasks with artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), optical character recognition (OCR) and business process management (BPM), ensuring you have an intelligent digital workforce streamlining workflows with full auditability and oversight. It allows your people to collaborate with your automations so you can boost efficiency and employee satisfaction – and help your customers get the best possible service while protecting you from risk.

What Are the Three Components of KYC?

Client or customer identification, CDD and ongoing monitoring are the key pillars of your KYC processes. Let’s break these down with IA:

Customer identification

• IA tools accurately extract information from various ID documents such as passports or driver’s licenses.
• IA can facilitate system integration for biometric data captures such as facial recognition or fingerprint scanning.
• IA compares the extracted customer data against various databases to verify authenticity.

Customer due diligence

• IA analyzes customer data and assesses their risk profiles based on transaction history, location, etc., and flags suspicious activity.
• IA can streamline enhanced due diligence (EDD) for high-risk customers by gathering additional information and conducting deeper investigations.
• IA ensures your KYC processes adhere to regulatory requirements by always using the most current compliance rules and regulations.

Ongoing monitoring and maintenance

• IA can continuously monitor customer transactions in real time to detect unusual activities or deviations. It can trigger alerts for further investigation or block suspicious transactions.
• IA updates customer data periodically to ensure accuracy and completeness.
• IA responds to significant events such as regulatory changes by adjusting monitoring parameters and conducting targeted reviews of customer segments.

Why Is KYC Important?

KYC protects your people, your organization and your customers. It’s your first step to ensuring security and protecting yourself from costly risks that may damage your business reputation. It’s essential for compliance with strict global regulations, including AML requirements, and it protects you from fraud.

What are the challenges with manual KYC?

Manual KYC checks are error-prone and take a lot of steps and paperwork, meaning your customers are stuck waiting a long time and your employees are trapped in an endless cycle of updating information and searching through stacks of documents for the right procedure.

KYC automation offers a new way of getting the most out of critical, but often time-consuming, processes.

What Are the Benefits of KYC Automation?

It’s time to verify the benefits of KYC automation for your organization.

Reduce the rising costs of compliance

Automated KYC processes eliminate manual data entry and reduce the time spent on repetitive tasks. With fewer labor costs and resources used, you can save costs for your organization.

Increase efficiency

KYC automation streamlines the entire ID verification process, making it more efficient. IA can process and analyze data faster than humans to make a more efficient workflow. Our customer Mashreq Bank increased their productivity by utilizing digital workers in their KYC processes.

Enhance customer experience

By automating KYC checks, you can reduce the time and effort required by your customers and give them a more user-friendly, streamlined experience. Increasing customer satisfaction is better for your business.

Ensure compliance to the regulator’s rules

With compliance automation, you can set up rules for your digital workers, so your processes are always up to date on the latest compliance requirements. IA can even scan documents to monitor for changes within regulation as they are issued so that nothing is missed.

Secure, Streamlined, Superb

KYC automation is a crucial strategy for businesses, especially in sectors rife with regulatory complexities and security concerns. By leveraging IA, you can revolutionize your KYC and AML processes, ensuring compliance, mitigating risks and enhancing operational efficiency. KYC automation not only reduces manual errors but also accelerates workflows, enabling you to better allocate resources.

Prioritize higher-value contributions from your risk and compliance professionals while delivering a superior customer experience. KYC automation can help you safeguard against fraud, reinforce regulatory adherence and foster sustained growth in an increasingly digital landscape.

Read our E-Book on how to manage risk more effectively through SS&C Blue Prism’s intelligent automation.