Safety, in the realm of banking and finance, is the number one priority for organizations and their customers. In today’s world of rapid digitalization and hyper-connectivity, ensuring the security of an individual’s assets, monetary or otherwise, has become quite an arduous task due to increasing threats of cybercrime. To combat such unwarranted situations, where a customer’s financials and regulatory compliance are at risk, governments and banks all over the world have adopted Know You Customer (KYC) to prevent the occurrence of fraudulent and money laundering activities. Organizations in the field of banking and finance leverage KYC technologies to gather relevant information about a customer’s identity, address, and other personal data to categorize them as low-risk individuals. This further simplifies onboarding processes and helps improve a bank’s retention capabilities. The customers, too, are benefited via KYC practices: banks understand their needs more comprehensively and offer more customized services that, conversely, improve the overall banking experience for all parties involved. Moreover, with an efficient KYC system in place, financial institutions can bolster their e-commerce and m-commerce services with more refined, optimized methods of conducting transactions, loan requests and sanctions, and improved security.
However, while incorporating KYC technologies into a bank’s workflows promises an array of desirable outcomes, the process of implementation proves to be complicated. In a world of continuous research and development of software-based solutions for the domain of finance, the availability of actionable information among the multitudes of customer data in existing databases is challenging. Additionally, with the integration of AI, IoT, NLP, and big data analytics, organizations are unable to stay updated consistently while focusing on executing their core business operations.
Another disruptive technology that is increasingly becoming popular in the KYC realm is the use of blockchain technology. Once associated only with Bitcoin, blockchain may prove to be a positive disruptor with the potential to redefine and reimagine the KYC/AML. It is enabling financial institutions to keep up with changing regulations, quickly validate customer information for KYC, drill down to the ultimate beneficiary owner, eliminate duplicate processes and provide a more seamless customer experience for on-boarding.
At this juncture, KYC technology providers have emerged to deliver cutting-edge banking solutions to assist financial institutions actively combat cybercrime, prevent money laundering and fraud, protect customers, and help improve compliance. These companies, driven by seasoned professionals in the field, seek to strengthen banking organizations by extending intuitive, automated, and analytical services that provide a safe, holistic understanding of their potential—and existing—customers.
In today’s digital ecosystem, therefore, it has become critical for CIOs to choose proper technology and select best vendors that are at the forefront of efficiently tackling the challenges across the KYC and fintech realm. To help CIOs negotiate this now burgeoning landscape, Capital Markets CIO Outlook’s distinguished panel comprising of CEOs, CIOs, VCs, industry analysts along with its editorial board have reviewed the top cloud solution providers and shortlisted the ones spearheading the charge toward fulfilling the urgent demands of the industry. The listing offers a look at how these solutions are put to use, thereby enabling business leaders to gain comprehensive knowledge as to how they can strategize growth.
In this edition of Capital Markets CIO Outlook, we present to you the “Top 10 KYC Tech Solution Providers – 2019.”