Swift's KYC Registry continues to benefit the Asia Pacific community as Nepal Investment Bank joins the initiative.
Kathmandu, 26 August 2015 - Swift announces today that Nepal Investment Bank has joined the Know Your Customer (KYC) Registry, a centralised repository that maintains a standardised set of information about correspondent banks required for KYC compliance.
Bijendra Suwal, Chief Information Officer at Nepal Investment Bank, says, "As Swift continues to provide community based solutions in financial crime compliance. We are honoured to be the pioneering bank in Nepal to join The KYC Registry; this tool will allow us to proactively share information with our correspondent banks, increase efficiency and reducing cost while complying with global regulations.
Banks contribute an agreed ‘baseline' set of data and documentation for validation by Swift, which the contributors can then share with their counterparties. Each bank retains ownership of its own information, as well as control over which other institutions can view it. Banks are not charged for data contribution or for using the Registry to share their KYC information with other banks. To maximise the Registry's benefits, data consumption is free in 2015 for banks that contribute their own KYC information to the Registry and promote it to their correspondents.
Andrew Burlison, Head of Compliance Services in Asia Pacific at Swift, adds: "The KYC Registry is a show of Swift's commitment to help its community in complying with compliance regulations. As we continue to see increasing collaborative efforts on financial crime compliance within the Asia Pacific banking community, Swift is pleased to welcome Nepal Investment Bank as they join The KYC Registry in supporting their KYC compliance activities with correspondent banks."
Launched in December 2014, the KYC Registry includes entities from more than 145 countries, facilitating compliance with a growing number of correspondent relationships worldwide. The KYC Registry is operated by Swift and was developed in collaboration with major global banks around the world.
Swift's KYC Registry has also been awarded ‘Project of the Year' and ‘Compliance Project of the year' in The Banker's prestigious technology Projects of the Year awards 2015 competition.
The Banker's Technology Projects of the Year awards recognise innovation in technology and are open to banks, non-bank financial institutions, third-party organisations, industry bodies, technology providers, consultancies and professional service firms. The awards from The Banker are the latest recognition of the success of Swift's community-driven approach to delivering financial crime compliance services.
For more information about The KYC Registry, visit KYC on swift.com
About Swift's financial crime compliance services portfolio
Swift's Compliance Services unit manages a growing portfolio of financial crime compliance services in the areas of sanctions, Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML). The portfolio includes Sanctions Screening and Sanctions Testing services, Compliance Analytics and The KYC Registry. For more information, visit the Compliance Services on swift.com
About Swift
Swift is a member-owned cooperative that provides the communications platform, products and services to connect more than 10,800 banking organisations, securities institutions and corporate customers in over 200 countries and territories. Swift enables its users to exchange automated, standardised financial information securely and reliably, thereby lowering costs, reducing operational risk and eliminating operational inefficiencies. Swift also brings the financial community together to work collaboratively to shape market practice, define standards and debate issues of mutual interest.
For more information, visit http://www.swift.com/ or follow us on Twitter: @swiftcommunity and LinkedIn: Swift
Contacts:
Brian Mui
Corporate Events Specialist, Asia Pacific
Swift
+852 2107 8748
brian.mui@swift.com
