AML process and AML KYC Software Solutions for Your Company

1. Anti-money Laundering Money laundering is the transfer of illegally obtained money (dirty money) into an institution, for example, a bank. It involves carefully channeling illegally-earned money to disguise its origin to avoid alerting authorities. AML, on the other hand, is the regulations, procedures, and laws set to prevent criminals from laundering money. In this article, we are going to understand: •AML process •Know your customer; and how it is related to anti-money laundering •Anti-money laundering software solutions Keep reading to find out more. AML process As we have earlier seen, anti-money laundering are the regulations, procedures, and laws that prevent corrupt money practices. These laws require financial institutions to do everything possible to stop money laundering, including reporting financial crimes. Anti-money laundering came to recognition after the creation of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). The task force developed anti-money laundering policies and made countries follow these policies. To make sure that countries followed these regulations, FATF adopted a "name and shame" policy to countries whose legislation concerning money laundering was not strong enough or capable. In many banks, most employees receive anti-money laundering training as financial organizations play a central role in financial crime. Financial institutions employees must become properly trained identification and handling of money laundering cases. Since financial organizations are required to follow anti-money laundering laws and procedures, this does not necessarily mean that they are in accord with them. Financial institutions claim that these laws and regulations are not only ineffective but also costly. How can you become an Anti-money laundering institution? First, is by knowing your customer. Do you know your customers well enough? It is advisable always to know your customers as you can face fines as a financial institution. Also you can be sanctioned, and the worst part of it all- loss of your hard-earned good reputation if you transact business with terrorists or drug dealers or even human traffickers. Through knowing your customers, you will prevent your institution from losses from fraud and illegal fund transactions.

2. Know Your Customer or KYC is the steps a financial institution takes. Through KYC, you get to authenticate your customer's identity, understand the nature of their financial activities to satisfy that the source of their money is legit. To launch and maintain a successful Know Your Customer program, you will require the following: 1. Customer Identification- Are your customers really who they say they are? Customer Identification is crucial to make it harder for criminals to get away with dirty money. Why? Identity theft has affected 16.7 million in the United States alone. Further, a lack of customer identification programs has accounted for the theft of $16.8 billion in 2017. Customer Identification Program ensures that all financial transactions have been verified through the identification of a customer. The key elements for a successful customer identification program in financial institutions are for each individual to have a business account that depicts the name of the customer, date of birth, addresses, and identification number. Also, the time taken to verify this information is crucial. This can be done by comparing information provided by the customer versus information supplied by a reliable source, for example, a government database. 2. Customer's Due Diligence- To know your client better and protect yourself against criminals and terrorists, consider using these three levels of due diligence – •Simplified Due Diligence where risks of transacting business with criminals are low. •Basic Due Diligence is assessing risks linked with a customer through information obtained by that customer. •Enhanced Due Diligence- clients provide more in-depth information about themselves so that a financial institution may get to understand the nature of their financial activities and prove that their money is from legitimate sources. As such, they are required to provide the location of their residence, their occupation, types of business transactions, their preferred method of payment of bills, and their transaction pattern. Keeping such information is crucial in the case of a regulatory audit. Through AML KYC software solutions, the above processes have become so easy because they have become automated. KYC software solutions run information provided against several databases for faster client processing and clearing. The key benefits of such software are that they improve a client's experience, reduces costs, and time management as clients' information is processed and stored quickly and securely. Such software offers real-time checks on individuals or even companies in different countries.

3. There are several KYC solution providers to help you with such services, such as running customers' data against databases. Some of them include Fen ergo and M2SYS Technology. The good thing with AML KYC software is that it can be used over the internet, that is, cloud computing as Software as a service (SaaS), which can be easily integrated into your existing workflow. Through SaaS, you can easily select your customer on-boarding workflow and have the option that serves you best depending on your business needs. Secondly, to continue being a free money-laundering institution, you have implemented an AML software that is quite integral in the AML field. AML KYC Software Solutions for Your Company AML software has capabilities that help to monitor customers in your business or financial institution. Such capabilities include name screening for blacklisted customers or high-risk clients. An example is the United States' Special Designated National List. Also, the software helps in monitoring transactions by identifying suspicious transaction patterns based on previous patterns of a given account. The AML software also reports currency transactions that are over $10,000. The software is also intelligent as it also automatically flags many small transactions adding up to a large amount of cash. The best part about the software is that it offers compliance requirements, and it can be used to keep detailed records of financial employee training, scheduled regulatory audits, and also track financial reports that have been sent to fiscal authorities. Conclusion Anti-money laundering is the process of making it harder for criminals to get away with dirty money through imposing laws, regulations, and procedures. Through knowing your customer initiative, you get to authenticate your customer’s identity, understand the nature of their financial activities, and prove that the source of their money is legit. AML KYC software helps you in fighting financial crime through verifying the identity of your customers, monitoring their financial transaction patterns and helps a great deal as it provides you with a list of blacklisted persons and high risk and vulnerable customers. The software can be used as a cloud-based service. Help your company or institution fight financial crimes to kill the motive of all criminals as all evil has a financial motivation behind it.