There before you need us

KYC And Customer Due Diligence Solutions

 

Weak KYC Makes Bad Customers Look Just Like Good Customers

We’ll help you spot the difference from the moment they walk through the door. 

Argus Pro. There before you need us.

KYC And Customer Due Diligence Solutions

What is Know Your Customer/Client (KYC)?

Know Your Customer/Client (“KYC”) is the process institutions use to verify the identity of their customers and ensure they are acting legally. KYC checks are a key regulatory process that help prevent financial crimes such as money laundering and terrorist financing in the UK. KYC forms the foundation of good anti-financial crime measures, underlining its importance.

KYC processes comprise 5 key stages: customer identification; customer due diligence; risk assessment; ongoing monitoring, and suspicious activity reporting. This is the KYC lifecycle. A weakness in any one of these stages could undermine your whole KYC process. KYC is never a "once-and-done" activity.

Argus Pro ensures every single step in each stage of your KYC process is sound to protect the integrity of your entire KYC lifecycle.

What UK Regulators Expect Of You

Banks, financial services, and other professional services firms such as accountants, solicitors, and online gaming firms are especially vulnerable to being used by customers for money laundering and other financial crimes.

UK firms are expected to design and implement an effective anti-money laundering control framework. You need to be able to identify customers and understand their source of wealth, income and business activities from the moment your relationship with them begins.

What Happens When It Goes Wrong?

Regulators in the UK take a very firm stance when organisations don’t have sufficiently effective KYC and AML checks and measures in place, even if no wrong doing is identified:

Santander fined £108m

Santander was fined £108m by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in late 2022. According to the FCA, Santander failed to sufficiently and comprehensively address its own red flags around the money laundering risk presented by its Business Banking customers in a timely manner. Santander agreed to resolve the problem to avoid paying £154m in fines.

Ashfords fined £101k

Prominent law firm Ashfords was fined £101k by the Solicitors Regulation Authority for inadequacies in handling potential money laundering risks. According to the SRA, both Ashfords’ Fee-Earner and Compliance teams failed to appropriately address or document red flags, leading to significant sums being received into the firm’s client accounts without proper evidence of source of funds.

How You Can Avoid Being Fined

Objective, proactive, and regular assessments of your internal KYC processes are key.

All organisations believe they have the people, technologies, and processes in place to ensure compliance with all relevant regulations. Weaknesses and shortcomings are commonly only discovered when being exploited by criminals.

Argus Pro secures your safety whether you’re a local client in London or elsewhere. We’ll stress-test your internal KYC processes to ensure they work when and how they need to. Our experienced team will pinpoint any weaknesses before they cost you. And - if the worst happens - we can help you with remediation.

To learn more about KYC checks and customer due diligence, click here. Or, if you have any questions about any of our tailored solutions for UK businesses, don’t hesitate to contact the team in London to discuss your requirements today.