encompass corporation: Simplifying KYC and AML Processes with AI

Banks in the APAC region face heightened regulatory scrutiny and have to maintain compliance with Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) regulations. This requires them to focus on the quantity and quality of the information used to onboard and maintain business relationships with customers. The need to access the right customer information has become more important with the rise of outbound financial investments by Chinese companies.

Many firms and high net worth individuals in China now seek to avail financial services outside of the country, specifically in Hong Kong. “To gain from these dynamics, banks and financial institutions must obtain the right data—ranging from local registries and premium company data to electronic identity information—that makes them understand a customer and identify any potential regulatory and reputational risks,” elaborates David Williams, sales director - APAC, at encompass corporation.

Glasgow-based encompass corporation simplifies this process for banks with its robust KYC compliance and documentation platform, powered by intelligent process automation (IPA), which allows them to gather information from multiple data sources cost-effectively. This system presents results 80 percent faster than manual methods and compiles the collected data into a single entity view.

It equips KYC analysts with a detailed picture of the customer’s business along with ensuring consistency and accuracy when it comes to giving the full picture through individual client profiles.

With this speedy KYC documentation process, customers can readily access products or services more quickly and conveniently, resulting in an improved banking experience. “Full automation ensures that policies and procedures are consistently enforced and adhered to across an enterprise for demonstrable compliance,” states Williams.

encompass corporation also offers flexible solutions and deployment strategies to enhance the existing infrastructure of banks and streamline their operations. Considering the fact that several banks have legacy infrastructure and processes in place, these solutions prove significant for them as they eliminate the need for wholesale changes or any significant IT support. “With our AI technology, we automate, improve, and eliminate the need for the manual execution of banking processes, data sourcing, client profile management, and bolsters security,” explains Williams. Additionally, the firm’s AI solution prioritizes the most relevant client information via electronic identity verification, screening for politically exposed persons (PEPs), and ultimate beneficial ownership (UBO) discovery capabilities, ensuring that analysts work more productively and securely.

The following anecdote—which focuses on when encompass corporation carried out a value exercise with a leading Australian bank—best illustrates the effectiveness of its SaaS solution. In this instance, the firm automated the UBO discovery process for the bank, enabling users to consistently unwrap global corporate structures more comprehensively than when using the bank’s existing processes. The procedure was completed six times faster than the usual manual methods. The platform also discovered corporate structure in the Cayman Islands, which was useful for the client’s staff and higher-ups.

With the rise in AML enforcement worldwide and increasingly stringent compliance regulations, combating financial crime is becoming a priority. “In such a scenario, it is imperative that we continue delivering our services for banks to leverage and bolster their KYC, AML, and compliance processes,” states Williams. Offering financial, IT, and AI expertise to the finance, banking, and legal industries, encompass corporation views 2019 to be a year of unimpeded growth in sales, distribution, and data partnerships across the APAC region.