The ‘Data Finder’ and the ‘Workflow’ – What to Look for in a KYC/AML Solution?

There are a lot of companies out there offering KYC/AML solutions but they aren’t all offering the same thing. In fact, KYC/AML solutions generally fall into two distinct categories – ‘the data finder’ KYC/AML solution and ‘the workflow’ KYC/AML solution. And then Muinmos came along and we added a category all of our own ‘the complete solution’ – which is the only complete KYC/AML solution on the market.

The ‘Data Finder’ KYC/AML Solution

Let me explain further. The ‘data finder’ KYC/AML solution provides information to feed into the onboarding process, which is typically IDV (identity verification), PEPs and Sanctions, Adverse Media etc. The great thing about these solutions is that they are automated and so are fast. They are also relatively easy to integrate. But financial institutions need to be mindful that these are only partial solutions – they only cover part of the onboarding solution. Also, as they don’t typically have global cover, financial institutions need to invest in several of these types of KYC/AML solutions, all from different providers.

Another downside of having a partial solution is that compliance officers need another system in place to complete the onboarding process. Moving from one system to another slows things down, making the process cumbersome and prone to human error. It’s also worth noting that there are so many of these KYC/AML solutions on the market that it’s hard to know which ones are good and which ones aren’t – obviously bad data and bad data extraction creates significant problems for financial institutions.

The ‘Workflow’ KYC/ AML Solution

The ‘workflow’ KYC/AML solution is also fairly self-explanatory. It takes a financial institution’s workflow and digitizes it, which is great because it makes the onboarding process less prone to human error and generally faster. But digitization is not the same as automation. The main “checklist items” may now be centralized and kept under the watchful eye of some computerised platform but without automation, the checklist is still “ticked” by compliance officers and this slows down the process. It also means that compliance officers still have to do the same tedious, repetitive tasks that consume most of their time and can result in low job satisfaction levels.

The result is that these KYC/AML solutions don’t improve the quality of compliance by much. What’s more, they typically take a long time to integrate. They are not a ready-made product and therefore involve programmers, systems designers and other specialists learning the financial institution’s workflow and building a tailored application. Not surprisingly, this can be eye-wateringly expensive, often hundreds of thousands of dollars or more.

The Ultimate KYC/AML Solution

Then of course, there’s option three, the ultimate KYC/AML solution – which takes the best of the two worlds – it automates, just like ‘Data Finder’ KYC/AML solutions; and it takes care of the entire onboarding chain, like the ‘Workflow’ KYC/AML solutions.

And I’m speaking, of course, about the Muinmos Client Onboarding Platform, which uses AI technology and fully automates the entire onboarding process.  The platform provides fast, automated global AML/KYC checks as well as automated cross-border client categorisation.

Unlike the ‘data finder’ and ‘workflow’ solutions, which rely heavily on either data scientists or IT specialists, Muinmos’ solution has been designed for people with Capital Markets experience, which is a huge advantage. It’s a ‘one fits all’ system that answers the needs of a large number of financial institutions worldwide across the globe.

Selecting the right platform is absolutely key to the smooth and efficient running of the compliance function. It’s also essential for winning the customer experience battle. Our platform enables onboarding of any client type in under 3 minutes, significantly speeding up the onboarding process and freeing up compliance officers’ time to focus on the more interesting aspects of their jobs (thus substantially raising their levels of job satisfaction!). It’s a cost-effective, customisable cloud-based product which is quick and easy to integrate. Or, if you’d like, it’s the ‘No Brainer’ KYC/AML solution!