Know Your Client (KYC) services

KYC is the core of every local and global effort to prevent money laundering. Supranational regulation is changing rapidly and growing in its power and reach, with consequences in every jurisdiction.

TMF Group is a leading Know Your Client (KYC) pioneer. Today our global network of compliance experts and industry-leading technologies mean we are always on hand – streamlining your KYC journey, keeping you compliant and on top of developments – wherever you do business.

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What’s the KYC compliance challenge?

Supranational regulatory frameworks, to verify that parties to a transaction really are who they say they are, continue to grant KYC regulators progressively more power over traditional financial services and markets.

Regulated industries have long been expected to screen all of their new clients. Now, the EU’s fifth anti-money laundering directive (AML5) requires those initial checks to be reviewed periodically (as risk factors demand) to make sure they are still valid.

High risk individuals and entities must now be subject to continuous monitoring throughout the relationship, to ensure their identity is verified and that they are suitable entities to be involved.

Meanwhile, KYC regulators are extending their reach into new sectors, such as property and fine arts.

The in-house costs of KYC compliance are snowballing as the potential financial, personal and reputational harm done by compliance failures continue to grow.

KYC compliance software with TMF Group

It’s 25 years since we built one of the world’s first KYC databases. Today our knowledge and experience of worldwide KYC procedures, administration and record-keeping runs deeper than ever.

We perform thousands of KYC checks a day – screening against global media, international sanctions registers and global compliance databases, while performing strict risk analyses in line with our clients’ particular criteria.

Our database solution, software tools and secure online portal provide an easy to use, automated and safe way to manage and maintain your KYC processes. (In fact, we use all the same software and tools to perform our own extensive KYC checks.)

For clients working against the clock on major transactions with heavy KYC compliance needs, our deep reservoir of skills and global resources let us scale up quickly to deliver complex compliance results in record time.

Our KYC services cover all elements of the KYC compliance process.

Customer identification, verification and screening

Clients provide us with KYC compliance documentation and we perform full due diligence checks – identification, information collection, sanction list screening, UBO and PEP (politically exposed person) tests – with the results reported back to the client.

Maintenance of documentation

Due diligence information is filed in our secure database for future inspection by clients, or in case regulators require it. 

Periodic and event-driven re-assessments and updates

We perform all the necessary periodic (risk-based) reviews and event-driven checks (when changing circumstances might have compromised the original risk assessments).

Continuous monitoring

Our ‘weekly wash’ meets the new AML5 requirement for continuous anti-money laundering monitoring by screening every current client record in our database. 

Reporting

A streamlined service of our own design prepares and transmits all the KYC reports (reportable accounts, related financial account information, associated personal information) necessary to satisfy the demands of AML, AIFMD, FATCA and CRS.

We make a complex world simple

TMF Group is a leading provider of critical administrative services, helping clients invest and operate safely around the world.

With more than 10,000 colleagues in 125 offices across 86 jurisdictions, all working to the same high standards of service and security, we provide our clients with local expertise where it is needed most. Our locations cover 92% of world GDP and 95% of FDI inflow.

We are a key part of our clients’ governance, providing the accounting, tax, payroll, fund administration and legal entity management services essential to their success. We make sure rules are followed, reputations protected and operational compliance maintained.

Our global service model and technology platform put our clients in control of their portfolio of entities and global locations. The data insights we deliver keep them on top of emerging regulation, the status of their own activity and any points of risk.

We serve corporates, financial institutions, asset managers, private equity and real estate investors, and family offices. Our clients include the majority of the Fortune Global 500, FTSE 100 and top 300 private equity firms.