Post By: Adam Turteltaub

The need to Know Your Customer (KYC) is not, contrary to popular belief, an issue limited to financial institutions.  A wide range of industries are affected. In fact, in 2020 of the 15 companies penalized by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), just two were financial services firms, reports Tracy Manning, Director of Financial Crime Compliance at LexisNexis Risk Solutions.

In this podcast she explains that, despite the diversity of affected firms, there are common challenges during this time of pandemic, including difficulty accessing sources for KYC due diligence information and delayed onboarding of new accounts.

So great and persistent is the challenge that almost 80% of survey respondents saw this problematic environment remaining for the next 18-24 months.

To navigate through these difficulties it’s important to understand the convergence of factors that combined with a pandemic to make KYC so hard. These include a mass shift by consumers to digital interactions, and with it rising expectations for business. Worse, bad actors have followed business online, changing their tactics to capitalize on the new reality, including preying on those working from home.

Compliance teams need to rethink their strategies for the new normal, she argues. For example, instead of relying on manual look-back processes geared towards physical identities, they need to explore the digital identity data consumers are leaving their wake.

KYC is yet another challenge for a challenging time. Listen in to learn more about KYC and protecting your business.