Standard Know Your Customer (KYC) refers to the process of client or individual verification and helps businesses mitigate the risk of financial fraud at the individual level. However, the risk of scams also exists at business and corporate levels in the industry. To combat such challenges, organizations have to opt for solutions that help them ensure compliance with the standard Know Your Business (KYB) regulations. That’s where business KYC comes in, a process that assists enterprises in curbing monetary scams while lowering the risk of identity theft, data breaches, corruption, and other tactics for money laundering. This article explores the significance of corporate verification. Read on to find its significance during business onboarding.
What is Business KYC?
Business KYC refers to the process of corporate verification where companies are identified and verified by the authentication service providers to ensure their legitimacy. The method ensures that a company organizations are partnering up with is up to the mark, honest, and transparent. Moreover, this approach serves as a milestone for enterprises to ensure compliance with standard Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Business (KYB) regulations.
Main Elements of Business KYC
The following are the primary elements of business KYC necessary for the identity and verification of organizations:
- Business Identity Verification
- Business Due Diligence
- Constant Monitoring
FinTech organizations, including banks, cryptocurrency, and other financial institutions, need to comply with these Know Your Business procedures to ensure security and a strong yet effective risk management strategy.
Business Identity Verification
Corporate identity verification is the very first step of Business KYC. It is the process where organizations have to identify and authenticate the individuality and legality of their collaborating businesses prior to initial onboarding. Moreover, the process ensures that newly onboarded businesses are legitimate and not involved in any illicit activities such as money laundering or corruption.
Business Due Diligence
Corporate due diligence is another significant step of business KYC that involves extensive verification procedures. This process includes comprehensive background verification of organizations and their official members, including owners, directors, investors, and other business partners, while ensuring their transaction monitoring along with extensive document check procedures. This approach serves as a significant way to ensure that the businesses a company is collaborating with are not involved in any illicit activity and have legitimate members, owners, and officials.
Ongoing Monitoring
Constant or ongoing monitoring is another crucial element of the business KYB process. The purpose of corporate screening and verification is to minimize the involvement of organizations in criminal movements. Hence, ongoing monitoring ensures that after a certain collaboration, companies are transparent with no illicit transaction activities.
Primary Benefits of Business KYC
In order to stay out of legal complexities, every company that is required to follow regulations must take measures to stop money laundering and similar crimes. A company should still do corporate KYC checks since it is risky and against the law to assist criminal behavior. There are three main reasons why corporate KYC is beneficial for businesses:
- Secure A Brand’s Reputation: Any company’s reputation takes a hit when it doesn’t do corporate KYC checks, which may scare away investors and consumers. For instance, e-commerce platforms may establish a foundation of confidence among verified platform users by using corporate KYC.
- Fraud Prevention: Businesses may protect themselves against fraud and damage to their reputation by implementing KYC checks. Potential business partners might be less likely to become engaged in questionable activities if the firm checks their validity before forming a partnership with them.
- Ensures Compliance: Compliance with business KYC rules is critical in regulated businesses. Significant fines or jail time may be imposed for noncompliance. Companies that take the time to establish robust corporate KYC procedures have a better chance of acquiring investors and consumers by establishing a solid reputation for compliance.
Briefly Put
Business KYC may be complicated without automation and technological aid. Manual verification processes require businesses to fill out a mountain of paperwork and undergo a thorough investigation of the firm and its stockholders. Nevertheless, automated business verification procedures allow companies to avoid all such fuss while mitigating the risk of financial fraud.
Corporate KYC verification may be made easier with the use of an automated platform. Companies can also enroll corporate entities more quickly with the help of business verification solutions, which gather information automatically and do AML checks while finding and verifying UBOs, and screens against sanctions and watchlists.
