Why automate the KYC process?
During the onboarding process, banks sift through documents such as proof of address, passports, statuses, and data from consumer reporting agencies to verify the authenticity of a potential customer. Preventing anonymity, assessing corruption risks, and exposing false identities protect banks, and society at large, from blatantly illegal activities. Navigating the paperwork using manual, hands-on methods is not only risky but also extremely time-consuming.
As a document-intensive process, KYC is the perfect freight forwarders brokers email lists champion for automation. But, according to a recent study , only 40.6% of KYC professionals say their onboarding operations are fully automated. A surprising 26.2% still handle the entire process manually, making it difficult to quickly process the modern flood of data.
Automated technologies, such as digital process automation , can supplement human eyes and ears to read, extract, review and collate identity data. Not only can automation do the legwork, it can also effectively maintain the impeccable audit trail required by many governing bodies.
Exploiting these automation possibilities
By automating KYC, banks can quickly validate identification documents, capture biometric data, and automatically cross-reference documents with third-party databases. Additionally, banks need streamlined practices to perform these critical checks, whether a customer applies in-branch, over the phone, or via an app.
Missed connections between data points are not only an administrative misstep, but can cost an institution billions of dollars in regulatory fines. Effective KYC controls, supported by a well-oiled automation strategy, are a sentinel against these risks. Here are the areas where the most successful compliance departments are implementing automation.
Data extraction
When using automated technologies, the type of information that computers can quickly assess is not limited to structured data such as spreadsheets and standard forms. Banks can automatically compile information from faxes, email attachments, online chats and voice calls to develop a KYC assessment.
Continuous monitoring
Another element of a successful KYC review is customer due diligence, or CDD. This process aggregates customer behaviors to try to predict their behavior. When things don’t go as planned, systems can quickly raise a red flag and trigger a more in-depth investigation.