Outmoded know-your-customer (KYC) processes in corporate banking are unsustainable, head of KYC at SWIFT, Bart Claeys, has told the bobsguide financial technology news site.

He also told reporter Alex Hamilton that nascent technologies such as distributed ledger technology have a way to go to prove their effectiveness in assisting KYC requirements.

Claeys’ views

“I think today there is a realisation that the current way that KYC is being formed is not sustainable anymore,” says Claeys.

“There is now a real opportunity for change, and a lot of banks and corporates are actually now taking that opportunity, though it’s taken a number of years to drive traction, because we’re talking about a legacy process that has been in place for four decades.”

Bank and corporate challenges

Claeys points out that regulators expect banks to do KYC on all corporates, not just on the corporate group but on all the individual entities within it that want to open and hold an account.

This is a heavy, repetitive process with challenges on both sides. “The bank has to do the KYC and then reach out to get in touch with the corporates and make sure they do a proper risk assessment. The challenge for the corporate is that they have to do this process over and over again and there is a lot of repetition and inefficiencies.”

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