Integration of data from The KYC Registry and Bankers World Online
The financial services industry spends billions of dollars each year on regulatory compliance, especially in light of newer rules governing Know Your Customer (KYC) compliance. Institutions are expected to pre-screen and perform validation checks on new correspondents, conduct enhanced due diligence where necessary, and review customer and counterparty information regularly.
These activities are costly and labour-intensive, typically involving the collection of non-standardised data and documents from multiple sources. Information can be of poor or irregular quality, and effort is often duplicated.
A better way forward
Swift, working collaboratively with the industry, has devised a solution to help customers find valuable data and streamline their correspondent network with KYC requirements. Swift has created a linkage between two of its most valued services – The KYC Registry and SwiftRef Bankers World Online – to provide seamless access to a broad and deep set of standardised, validated reference data and KYC information.
Bankers World Online provides a single source of reference data and financial information for banks and corporates, including BIC and national bank identification codes, LEIs, IBAN/SEPA data and SSIs. For more in-depth assessments and client onboarding, The KYC Registry offers a global source of standardised, accurate and validated KYC information that addresses regulatory requirements worldwide. Used together, the two solutions provide a comprehensive KYC information service for correspondent banking.
More specifically, with Bankers World Online, KYC Registry users are able to query a broad range of data for prospecting new correspondent relationships, managing straight-through payments processing and regulatory reporting. In parallel, The KYC Registry enables Bankers World Online users to gain detailed and granular data to conduct client onboarding, as well ongoing and enhanced customer due diligence (EDD). Through the coupling of these services, users can also better align their compliance activities with market standards and best practices – all the while reducing effort, cost and risk.
“In speaking with our clients, we recognized a need for more streamlined access to high-quality data to support due diligence activities,” said Hervé Valentin, Head of SwiftRef. “Working in concert, Bankers World Online and The KYC Registry prove to be complementary and provide crucial data for network managers, compliance teams, and operations and back-office personnel throughout the correspondent lifecycle.”
Trustworthy data from a trusted source
Swift is the member-owned cooperative through which the financial world conducts its business.
Because of its industry role and relationships, Swift is uniquely positioned to deliver accurate and comprehensive reference data. Bankers World Online is the flagship service of the SwiftRef utility, which sources data directly from data originators, including banks, central banks and code issuers. Swift constantly validates and cross-checks this information, ensuring it is always accurate and up-to-date.
Likewise, The KYC Registry relies on current, meticulously validated data to help banks fulfill their due diligence requirements. Swift has worked with the world’s largest correspondent banks to define a set of data and documentation that addresses KYC requirements across multiple jurisdictions. Users upload their documentation to The KYC Registry and share it with the institutions they select. As part of the validation, Swift informs users if their data is incomplete or needs to be updated, and alerts correspondents whenever their data changes.
In both cases, banks trust Swift’s secure and reliable utility model to provide the mission-critical data that powers their banking relationships.
Collaboration for an enhanced user experience
“Integrating and cross-referencing data from The KYC Registry and Bankers World Online brings our KYC and due diligence offering to the next level, ultimately delivering a superior user experience,” said Bart Claeys, Head of KYC Compliance Services at Swift. “By tapping into the vast and robust data available to the financial industry via Swift’s varied solutions, we are able to offer a new level of insight and provide a standardised and efficient approach allowing banks to conduct KYC and CDD more effectively.”
Following the successful pairing of Bankers World Online and The KYC Registry, Swift sees future opportunities for synergy among existing offerings, all with the intention of delivering the best experience and most valuable information to the financial services industry. One such example is the forthcoming launch of Sanctions List Distribution – downloadable sanctions lists available through SwiftRef.
Integrating and cross-referencing data from The KYC Registry and Bankers World Online brings our KYC and due diligence offering to the next level
While regulatory requirements may only become more complex and data-reliant, the challenge and cost associated with meeting these requirements can continue to be reduced through the thoughtful application of industry utilities and shared data repositories. Swift’s recent linkage of The KYC Registry and Bankers World Online is a prime example of the efficiency and transparency that can be achieved when standardised data is streamlined for the benefit of the industry.
