Opus Accelerates KYC Automation For Banks

Compliance and risk management technology provider Opus is launching a new Know Your Customer (KYC) workflow solution for banks. A press release on Tuesday (Jan. 29) said Opus is rolling out its Clarity KYC solution to automate KYC workflows and enhance risk analysis. The Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) tool also looks to streamline client onboarding and improve the accuracy of customer due diligence.

Clarity KYC integrates business identification, screening processes and due diligence, reporting, and customer monitoring into a unified solution, the company explained. Pointing to the Fifth Money Laundering Directive (5MLD) and FinCEN‘s CDD Final Rule, Opus noted that financial regulations are becoming more stringent and complex, adding to the burden of compliance efforts among banks.

The tool deploys artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze traditional and open source information for enhanced risk management.

“Our banking customers have asked us for a faster and easier way to meet their due diligence and compliance needs in KYC, [anti-money laundering (AML)] and other related areas,” said Opus CEO Emanuele Conti in a statement. “We worked with them to design this new solution, pulling in advanced entity resolution and workflow capabilities into a more modern and intuitive user experience. We are looking forward to helping all of our customers simplify their process, save time and reduce their risks.”

Banks’ KYC compliance challenges have become a key focus in the emergence of RegTech. Research from Fortytwo Data, published last October, found that 18 of Europe’s 20 largest banks have been sanctioned for anti-money laundering activity in the last decade, while AML and KYC-related fines have totaled $26 billion in the last decade, Fenergo analysis revealed. Ninety-one percent of those fines were issued to U.S. banks.

In an interview with PYMNTS at the time, Avoka CMO Don Bergal explained how FinCEN’s heightened requirements for business identification has challenged financial institutions.

“Banks now hold a major responsibility under the threat of strict penalties to identify all business owners, big and small, when opening an account,” he said, “to analyze their financial history, citizenship, potential for money laundering, past involvement in fraud and more before opening up an account.”