Swift is opening its world-leading KYC Registry platform to corporates to help address the growing demand for comprehensive data management.
In an era of constantly evolving regulation and Know Your Customer (KYC) obligations, both corporates and banks seek to simplify the maintenance process of exchanging KYC data. To meet their evolving needs, Swift is extending its KYC Registry to corporates.
Increasing KYC efficiencies
Today, many corporates hold accounts with several banks and subsidiaries, resulting in time-consuming and costly reviews of their KYC information.
This is acknowledged by Stephan Ziegler, Head of Bank Relations at Siemens Treasury who said: “As a global corporation, the efforts of Siemens to perform KYC-related tasks across the institution is a repetitive, lengthy and a cumbersome process.
“With Swift announcing KYC for Corporates, we are delighted to see a well-positioned player moving ahead to answer this need with the full strength of its banking and corporate community.”
With data often disseminated across multiple sources, incomplete or out of date, banks have to repeatedly follow-up and update information with their corporate customers.
The expansion of our KYC Registry to corporates will make the process more efficient for both corporates and banks. Commenting on the benefits of this new offering, Marie-Charlotte Henseval, Head of KYC Compliance Services, Swift said: “This unique and well established utility already delivers huge benefits to banks, and its extension to corporates will extend them the same advantages, with a standard agreed by the community and a secure platform enabling efficient data sharing.”
Standardisation of KYC data
Opening of Swift’s KYC Registry to corporates will also address the inefficiencies arising from differing jurisdictional requirements and the lack of standardised data.
According to John Colleemallay, Senior Director Group Treasury & Financing at Dassault Systèmes: “KYC for Corporates is a dream come true for all treasurers, considering the heavy workload involved in providing the same documentation several times in multiple formats to our banking partners. We look forward to having a secured shared registry where we can more easily and rapidly complete the KYC processes.”
Opening new efficiencies for Swift connected corporates
The 2,000 Swift connected corporate groups will be able to join the KYC registry from Q4 2019 and use it to upload, maintain and share their KYC information with banks.
To date, more than 5,100 financial institutions benefit from a simplified management of their KYC due diligence information by using our KYC Registry.
The opening of the utility to corporates received a positive response from the community, banks and corporates alike. Talking about the impending launch, Daniel Ochsner, Member of Management, Würth Finance International B.V. and Chairman of Swift Corporate Group Switzerland, said: “We are very pleased to see that Swift has aligned its banking community to provide a simplified KYC experience to corporates.
“The success of The KYC registry for banks and the trust we put in Swift puts us at great ease when it comes to exchanging documents and information with our global bank partners.”
