KYC (Know Your Customer) screening is an essential process for businesses to identify and verify their clients’ identities as well as surfacing any potential risks associated with them. This process helps mitigate the risk of financial fraud, money laundering and other illegal activities by following KYC regulations. The information gathered during KYC screening can come from various sources, including both structured and unstructured data sets; processing these data sets presents several difficulties that businesses must overcome.

smartKYC has pioneered the use of artificial intelligence to address the very shortcomings MAS identifies. Here we review MAS’ observations regarding areas for improvement in each of the four categories that formed the scope of its inspection, and how smartKYC has been designed to meet the challenge of each.

What is entity resolution and why is it important?

When carrying out Know Your Customer (KYC) screening, a challenge many organisations face is determining whether data refers to the same entity or multiple, different entities. Entity Resolution (ER) is a technique that allows you to know if real-world entities are linked—or not. Once the entities have been determined as equivalent, a common identifier is added, linking the different records. This enables you to create unique customer profiles and avoid duplication.

ESG is very topical at the moment but there continues to be confusion around the term and what it means for organisations when it comes to risk.

One thing that is for certain in 2022 is that globally we can expect to see further AML regulations, particularly in the crypto and digital financial market space. Last year, we saw a key shift in focus to digital financial markets, with the EU’s 6th Anti-Money Laundering Directive (6AMLD) now incorporating virtual asset service providers (VASPs).

On 21 May this year, the FCA wrote an open letter to CEOs of the retail banking industry in the United Kingdom. The letter highlighted a range of shortcomings with regard to their financial crime systems and controls.

smartKYC, the world’s most advanced enterprise solution for KYC due diligence automation, has today announced the addition of the Hindi language and script to smartKYC’s multilingual Natural Language Processing technology. smartKYC’s technology now processes and analyses over 35 different languages in multiple writing systems including Latin, Chinese, Arabic and Devanagari.

Private banks and wealth managers face unique KYC screening demands. Their clients will often require a more enhanced background check due to their association with certain jurisdictions or sectors, the sophistication of their banking and investment needs or their raised public profile.

Financial institutions face the challenges of achieving seamless client onboarding and ever evolving regulatory hurdles due to huge work loads, expensive staffing costs and inefficiencies caused by outdated processes and human error.

The Big Problem A key issue for many financial institutions these days is: Who is their client. With more regulation than ever before, anti money laundering (AML) and compliance are now the priorities for any financial institution, with their profitability as only a secondary concern. This need for heightened due diligence, partnered with a seemingly