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AML Compliance

Boost account opening conversions and speed up real-time onboarding while meeting stringent Anti-Money Laundering compliance and screening obligations.
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What is AML?

Anti-money laundering (AML) describes the legal controls that require financial institutions and other regulated entities to prevent, detect and report money laundering activities. Directives such as the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) of 1970 and the more recent USA Patriot Act require financial institutions to comply with AML measures. Anti-money laundering (AML) refers to a set of procedures, laws and regulations designed to stop the practice of generating income through illegal actions. Though anti-money laundering laws cover a relatively limited number of transactions and criminal behaviors, their implications are far-reaching.

Who is Impacted?

AML regulations require financial institutions issuing credit or allowing customers to open accounts to complete due-diligence procedures to ensure they are not aiding in money laundering activities or financial crimes. It’s up to financial institutions that issue credit or allow customers to open accounts to practice enhanced due diligence and verify customers to ensure they are not taking part in a money laundering scheme. They must verify where large sums of money originated, monitor suspicious activities and report material cash transactions.

AML Compliance and Your Identity Verification Process

Online identity verification is the starting point for AML compliance in the digital world. If the EU’s Fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive is any indication, governing bodies are becoming more comfortable with, and some would suggest even encouraging of, the use of digital customer identity verification.

The European Commission recognizes,

“Accurate identification and verification of data of natural and legal persons is essential for fighting money laundering or terrorist financing. Latest technical developments in the digitalization of transactions and payments enable a secure remote or electronic identification.”

According to Gov.UK, organizations must perform due diligence by carrying out checks on their business and customers, and maintain records to help prevent money laundering. Customer due diligence works hand in hand with customer identification. It is a financial organization’s responsibility to check and verify who a customer is. In practice, this means obtaining a customer’s name, photograph on an official document that confirms their identity, residential address and date of birth. The best way to do this is to ask for a government-issued document like a passport, along with utility bills, bank statements and other official documents.

AML and KYC go hand in hand when it comes to the role of online identity verification.

To help meet your AML compliance obligations, look for a solution that offers these features and benefits:

  • Convenience for customers
  • A high level of assurance that your customers are who they say they are
  • Mobile and web-enabled, leveraging on-device technology, biometrics (such as facial recognition with liveness detection), compliant machine learning, and identity experts
  • Extra layer of assurance through document verification to help establish proof of address by extracting data from bank statements or utility bills

The Difference between KYC and AML

Many financial institutions often blur the lines between KYC processes and AML practice, and as a result incur regulatory fines. KYC, as we have established, is just the identity verification process Identify the client. Its principal purpose is to better understand your customers and their financial dealings, thus managing risks efficiently.

While an AML program consists of the following:

Customer Due Diligence (CDD) is a basic KYC process where customer’s data such as proof of identity and address is gathered and used to evaluate the customer’s risk profile.

Enhanced Due Diligence (EDD) is an advanced KYC procedure for high-risk customers. Generally, customers who are classified under the high risk category after CDD are prone to money laundering and financing of terrorism. Hence they are regulated and monitored as per stipulated norms.

EDD procedure includes verifying the Ultimate Beneficial Ownership information (UBO) and politically exposed persons (PEP). Transaction Monitoring is also a key element of EDD.

History of Anti Money Laundering (AML)

AML laws became prominent in 1989, when a group of countries and organizations around the world formed the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). Its mission is to devise international standards to prevent money laundering and to promote the implementation of those standards. In 1990, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) was established by the US Department of Treasury “to safeguard the financial system from illicit use, combat money laundering and promote national security.” In October 2001, shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States, FATF expanded its mandate to include efforts to combat terrorist financing through the passage of the USA Patriot Act.

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How Jumio Can Help

Jumio’s online identity verification solutions are among the most cost-effective ways of responding to the demands of their ever mobile-centric and technically savvy customers with an easy to use and secure identity authentication experience.

Additionally, Jumio’s solutions help banks and other financial institutions support ongoing Anti Money Laundering compliance programs on a global scale since our identity verification solutions are already in compliance with the most comprehensive regulations. Jumio also offers document verification services that extracts address information from utility statements and bank statements which provides an extra layer of identity assurance.

Verify customers across the globe: countries, languages, ID types

Verify customers across devices: Native mobile, web, mobile web, API

Fast and easy customer experience

Instant feedback to improve conversions and reduce drop-offs

Extract proof of address from utility bills, bank statements and credit card statements

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