Know Your Customer (KYC)

A Know Your Customer check is a mandatory procedure for institutions like banks and financial entities. It ensures compliance with laws and safeguards clients from illicit activities such as money laundering and terrorist financing.

At CERI, we've been at the forefront of KYC since 2014, executing processes for both domestic and international clients. Our KYC team, comprising around 200 employees including analysts, experts, and quality managers, diligently serves thousands of corporate clients monthly from various countries.

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How we can assist you

Analysis and acquisition of data and documentation

Verify documents for formality, assess the consistency and completeness of data, clarify discrepancies. We check registration documents, nature of business, financial statements.

Building an ownership structure and identifying the beneficial owner (UBO/SBO)

Identify the UBO/SBO even in complex structures, collecting evidence of ownership at all levels and in different jurisdictions.

Manual and automatic screening

Screening using Dow Jones/Factiva/WLF Actimize/RDC/Lexis Nexis. Handling alerts related to sanctions, negative news (AME), politically exposed persons (PEP), blacklisted persons, including PnG.

Per-process activities

End-client contact (Client Outreach), 4-eye quality control and post-audit Quality Assurance, escalations to Compliance / KYC Advisory legal departments, NRD monitoring, expert consultancy for creating and updating KYC procedures, backlog/post-audit remediation, translations (English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Russian, Czech, Slovak, Dutch, Hungarian, Ukrainian).

Risk assessment

Risk categorization (low, medium, high): - Legal risk (risk of violation of sanction laws) - Regulatory risk (risk of failure to meet regulatory expectations) - Reputational risk (risk of any legal or regulatory defects).

Expert Business Support

At CERI, we provide expert business support by assisting customers in strategic and technical projects. Our focus is on optimizing and simplifying their operating model, and we specialize in implementing Smart Automation solutions to enhance efficiency.

Know Your Customer

Foundation for secure business cooperation

At CERI, we recognize that the key to secure business cooperation lies in understanding our clients. Our dedicated analysts meticulously analyze and evaluate clients, aiming to identify their identity, assess associated business risks, and ensure that the collected documentation aligns with applicable laws and regulations.

The culmination of this thorough process results in a comprehensive understanding of the client’s current state of knowledge, encompassing reliability and transactional profile. The outcomes of this analysis form the basis for decisions regarding the initiation, continuation, or termination of cooperation with the customer.

The essence of Know Your Customer verification is to safeguard our customers from fraudulent entities, mitigate operational and legal risks, and, consequently, act as a guarantor of the company’s stellar reputation.

Strengths for your business

Many years of practice: Our knowledge in the area of KYC/AML/CFT and the experience gained over the years of processing thousands of even the most complex and challenging cases, brings concrete added value and makes us a valuable partner for the banks that work with us.
Team of experts: Our strength is our people and their competence – we speak 11 foreign languages, and our analysts have market-recognized certifications and training such as ACAMS, Lysis Financial, ICA, ASPEN Olivier Gnyp CFE.
Quick start: Approximate implementation time from the decision to start cooperation is from 3 months upwards, depending on the scope of outsourced services.

We provide

At CERI, we provide a comprehensive range of services tailored to meet the diverse needs of our clients:

End-to-End Solutions: Our services cover the entire spectrum, starting from Next-Review-Date (NRD) monitoring and initiating KYC processes for new customers (onboarding). We extend support through cyclic verification, change management throughout the customer lifecycle, and conclude with the termination of customer relationships (offboarding of a corporate customer). Additionally, we excel in quality control (QC/QA) activities, assist in backlog execution, and facilitate post-audit remediation.
Standard Activities in Client Verification: We proficiently handle standard activities in the client verification process, including obtaining client information and documents from various sources. This encompasses direct interactions with clients, identity verification (ID&V), acquiring information about the source of funds (SOW/SOF), screening processes, building ownership structures, and determining beneficial owners (UBO/SBO). We also specialize in FATCA/CRS verification.
Customized Processes: Recognizing the unique needs of each client, we offer customized processes that provide flexibility and comprehensive services in alignment with the highest industry standards.

At CERI, our philosophy is centered around efficiency, flexibility, and responsibility. These core values translate into success for both our partners and our dedicated team.

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