SWIFT’s KYC Registry adds Dominican Republic
Financial messaging services provider SWIFT said that the Dominican Republic is the first country to implement the know your customer (KYC) Registry as a financial community. Nearly all member banks of the Dominican Republic SWIFT user community have become registered users.
“Banks who engage in correspondent relationships require a range of information and documents about their counterparties in order to achieve effective due diligence programmes and meet other regulatory requirements,” said Fabiola Herrera, director, payments and systems, at the Central Bank of the Dominican Republic.
“Adopting the SWIFT central KYC utility as a whole community means that banks in the Dominican Republic will raise their levels of compliance with applicable anti-money laundering standards. It also allows us to strengthen the mechanisms for preventing and mitigating risks associated with crimes of a financial nature in the Dominican Republic.”
SWIFT has said that the KYC Registry now has entities from across 109 countries, facilitating compliance with a growing number of correspondent relationships worldwide. Launched last December 2014, the Registry provides a simple, secure way to exchange a standardised set of information for correspondent banking KYC compliance.
Banks contribute an agreed ‘baseline’ set of data and documentation for validation by SWIFT, which the contributors can then share with their counterparties. Each bank retains ownership of its own information, as well as control over which other institutions can view it. Banks are not charged for data contribution or for using the Registry to share their KYC information with other banks.
Luc Meurant, head of banking markets and compliance services at SWIFT, commented: “The KYC Registry is a key initiative behind SWIFT’s commitment to help its community comply with financial crime compliance regulations.”