Stop using Google for AML/KYC Due Diligence

Google is not a front-line risk mitigator, it’s a search engine. And yet as many as 4 in 5 financial service organisations still use it to drive mission-critical AML and KYC processes. 

Whilst Google has huge value as the ‘go-to’ online research tool, no mass market search engine is going to be suitable for high-value tasks such as Know Your Customer (KYC), Anti-Money Laundering (AML), Know Your Supplier (KYS) due diligence, or risk management activities. Google is designed to index the whole internet and carry out general searches. Whilst you can ask it a series of iterative targeted questions to eke out the answers you need, this is at best inefficient and hugely time-consuming, and at worst inaccurate or incomplete – meaning the chances of fraudulent transactions going through is high. 

Perhaps it’s not surprising then that the same survey also reported 47% of respondents’ time is spent processing data into a usable format. 

There’s got to be a better way than ‘Googling’ your customers 

According to PwC, financial services businesses use only 0.5% of available data.  Whilst those spearheading change in the financial services sector are looking to get more value from their data ecosystems; make it more useable, more accessible, drive more 

This presents not just an opportunity for improvement, but rather a transformation that is vital to the future relevance and efficiency of the FSI sector. 

Client onboarding is one of the most critical functions for FSIs, as it directly impacts client experience, servicing, and relationships — all of which, in turn, impact profits. FSI organisations must ensure they have an accurate view of their customer risk, remain compliant with ever-changing regulations, and, at the same time, not compromise on the customer experience. Failure to perform to the best of a bank’s  or FSIs abilities in any of these areas can lead to reputational damage, sanctions, and hefty penalties. 

Why then, you ask, would any organisation place their trust in Google for such high-value and highly complex activities? 

Why struggle when you can automate? 

Let’s look at a little deeper into the nature of the struggle for FSI professionals when grappling with data as well as how automation provides the solution: 

• False Positives – monitoring via Google may lead a researcher to wrongly categorise unsuspicious transactions as suspicious. For a typical financial institution monitoring KYC, 75%-85% of the alerts are false positives. By leveraging an advanced AI-powered rules-engine the risk of false positives is immediately reduced, whilst at the same time generating a deeper and more accurate view based on each institutions’ criteria and risk appetite 
• Need for supplementary data sources – Firmographic information alone isn’t enough to create the highly relevant insights needed for accurate KYC, CDD and AML. By harnessing the ability to ingest and match millions of structured and unstructured data points, financial institutions can quickly receive the impactful insights and risk intelligence needed to find the right customers, onboard them faster, and keep them for life 
• Duplication – Limited collaboration between front, middle and back-office teams creates duplication of effort and information siloes. This in turn leads to customer frustration. 12% of companies said they changed banks as a result of KYC issues, a Thomson Reuters survey found. Advanced technologies such as FullCircl are helping FSIs onboard business customers up to 94% faster with automated KYC, AML and credit checks. 
• Unclear data provenance/lack of data source – Lack of trusted and high-quality data is driven by inefficient data capture methods such as using Google. 
• Volume/monitoring unstructured data – The amount of data generated daily is mind-boggling. 80 to 90 percent of data generated and collected by organisations is unstructured; and its volumes are growing rapidly — many times faster than the rate of growth for structured data. The challenge with harnessing and monitoring it is becoming harder every day. Customer Lifecycle intelligence tools sucg as FullCircl’s Business Information Graph (B.I.G™) ingest billions of data points every day from a multitude of official and third-party sources, then match and enrich this information to unlock the most accurate and contextualised view of every customer 

Replace Google with Customer Lifecycle Intelligence from FullCircl 

Customer Lifecycle Intelligence by FullCircl brings together: 

• Super-connected enriched-data and insights on companies and the officers inside them – FullCircl Business Information Graph and API 
• A configurable, low-code decision engine to screen and onboard in seconds based on your specific risk profiles – FullCircl Connect Rules Based Decision-Engine 
• Continuous monitoring and timely intelligence for proactive first engagement and remediation – FullCircl Engage Monitoring and Business Development Applications 

To help you: 

1.  Win the right customers - find, engage, and win the right customers for your business, products, and risk appetite. 
2. Accelerate onboarding - fast, frictionless onboarding with automated AML, KYC and Credit checks that surpass both customer and compliance expectations. 
3. Keep customers for life - Deliver proactive in-life customer care as new risks and opportunities emerge. 

All within one platform! 

 What makes us unique? 

•  We are the only platform that goes FullCircl - The only technology partner who can help you find, onboard and retain the right customers for life 
• Proven CLI platform advantage - Easy to configure, fast time to value across digital and human channels, delivering super connected data and engagement insights 
• We invest in your success - Proven enablement program to get you to value quickly and ensure you stay there 

Metro Bank, an early adopter of FullCircl has reported that using the platform they have been able to automate many aspects of their operational process for on-boarding new customers or screening the back-book in a fraction of the time – at scale.    

Speaking about the experience of Ronan Heeran, Financial Crime Risk & Control Manager at Metro Bank commented: “We started working with FullCircl to explore ways we could introduce greater efficiency to the customer onboarding journey. We loved the idea of being able to aggregate data from a number of different sources and map our risk appetite using FullCirc’s rules-based automation to flag issues immediately. The result meant we could deliver a process which in some cases was 94% quicker than our existing process.” 

Likewise in the Insurance sector early adopter QBE, has reported that they’ve been able to automate many aspects of the commercial underwriting process which touch external unstructured data, FullCircl’s B.I.G™ could easily ingest. As well as the benefit of a simplified and consolidated underwriting process across all 200 of its underwriters.   

David Jones, Director of Underwriting at QBE commented: “the flexibility and configurability of FullCircl’s platform enables QBE to be proactive, rather than reactive, to changes in data for client assessment.” 

Let us prove we are better than Google 

 We love a challenge. In fact, we love it so much we guarantee we can help you quickly eliminate complexity, reduce cost to serve, really know your customers (and ensure they really trust you), embed sustainability and become 100% compliance assured. 

 So why not give us a try. Contact us today to review our product suite, API and web applications, and to set up your structured pilot.