Six more banks have signed on with financial messaging and services cooperative SWIFT to help develop the Know Your Customer (KYC) Registry, a centralized repository that maintains a standardized set of information about banks required for regulatory due diligence processes, according to a company statement.
Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Erste Group Bank AG, HSBC, ING and Raiffeisen Bank International AG are the latest banks to sign on to the SWIFT-led KYC initiative, bringing the total to 12, SWIFT officials say.
Those institutions join Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citi, Commerzbank, J.P. Morgan, Societe Generale and Standard Chartered, whose participation was announced in March 2014, according to the statement.
The KYC Registry initiative was developed by SWIFT in collaboration with the financial service industry to help banks manage compliance challenges surrounding KYC-related regulations. Each user in SWIFT’s KYC Registry will have a standardized access point to obtain details on counterparties, while remaining in control of their own information and which organizations can view it, according to the statement.
“Collaboration is playing a major role in the development of this industry-driven initiative,” says Luc Meurant, head of banking markets and compliance services at SWIFT, in a written statement. “Banks want to collectively address the challenges around KYC compliance and SWIFT is well placed to help. We are receiving tremendous support from the banking community and are making great progress delivering a tool the industry needs to better support KYC compliance for correspondent banking.”
The 12 banks will participate in a SWIFT-led working group to determine the KYC Registry’s processes, documentation and data requirements. Some working group banks have already begun populating the registry with their own KYC information, according to the statement. In addition, user testing of its secure web-based platform is ongoing.
According to the SWIFT statement, a new group of major banks will begin contributing company data in September, and the KYC Registry is expected to go live at the end of 2014.
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