Do You Know Your Clients? You Better. It’s the Law!

Know your client “(KYC”) is the process of an organization verifying clients’ identities and assessing their potential risks of illegality via their financial assets. It encompasses illicit activities such as money laundering and the financing of criminal/terrorist activities and was born of the 2001 USA Patriot Act.

While KYC has probably made the world a safer place, it has also made the customer experience worse. As part of the KYC due diligence process, the time it has taken customers to open bank accounts, apply for credit cards and so forth has become greatly elongated.

The most recent antidote for the KYC process is artificial intelligence (“AI”). It has taken a heretofore very manual, decentralized, time-consuming process and made it a technologically enhanced, centralized one. What used to take dozens of data entry people thousands of hours to perform, now takes just minutes with AI.

Not only has this innovation enhanced the customer experience, banks can now become a personalized marketplace where they can offer clients banking, mortgage service, landscaping contractors, television providers and more under one roof.

Whether it is KYC or some other form of regulation, technology will have a role to play. The key is to align that technology with staff and external business advisors to optimize the results.

To read Rahul’s complete article, “AI Helps You KYC Better, Faster,” in Banking CIO Outlook, click here.