Bank support for KYC Asia development

A number of major banks have signed up in support of a Markit and Genpact joint venture – Kyc.com – as it expands in the Asia pacific region.

Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Morgan Stanley and UBS have already registered for the know your customer (KYC) resource to support their due diligence in the area. Standard Chartered, who currently holds a large presence in Asia, are also reportedly in the process of joining.

The service, which is also being used by over 1,500 buy-side firms and corporations, enables investment managers, corporates and banks to streamline KYC practices by collecting required documentation and data only once to create a reusable profile.

According to a recent survey conducted by kyc.com, 63% of financial institutions in the region consider varying KYC standards to be the biggest factor impacting regulatory risk while 58% surveyed have either terminated existing customers or refused new customers as a result of due diligence concerns.

“We actively support the use of KYC utilities and have been investing in the development of the kyc.com service as a founding design partner since its inception,” said David Deane, managing director of client and data services at Deutsche Bank.

David Fleet, managing director of client onboarding and management, Standard Chartered said, “one of the biggest challenges to conducting KYC in Asia is the regional variation for cross border compliance, which adds a layer of complexity to managing our customer relationships.”

“For us it’s about establishing best practice and mutualising efforts to remove some of the regional anomalies. Kyc.com supports this and provides a more cost effective way to conduct our business,” he added.