SWIFT, the financial messaging services provider, said that Itaú BBA, one of Latin America’s largest financial services firms, has joined the know your customer (KYC) Registry, a centralised repository that maintains a standardised set of information about correspondent banks required for KYC compliance.
SWIFT, the financial messaging services provider, said that Itaú BBA, one of Latin America’s largest financial services firms, has joined the know your customer (KYC) Registry, a centralised repository that maintains a standardised set of information about correspondent banks required for KYC compliance.
The Brazilian bank, which is the wholesale and investment arm of the Itaú Unibanco group, will also adopt SWIFT’s sanctions screening service, which is a community-based solution used by financial institutions to provide real-time message screening against sanctions lists.
“SWIFT is pleased to help Itaú BBA address the increasing financial crime compliance requirements and welcomes them to the growing community of users leveraging SWIFT services to support an effective and efficient implementation of their financial crime compliance processes,” said Christina Hutchinson, head of SWIFT Brazil.
For The KYC Registry, banks contribute an agreed ‘standardised set of data and documentation for validation by SWIFT, which 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.
SWIFT added that to maximise the Registry’s benefits, data consumption is free in 2015 for banks that contribute their own KYC information to the Registry and promote it to their correspondents. The Registry currently includes entities from more than 145 countries, facilitating compliance with a growing number of correspondent relationships worldwide.
For sanctions screening, the service combines a sophisticated screening engine and sanctions list management. Transactions can be screened against more than 30 of the most important sanctions lists, including lists from the US Office of Foreign Assets Control, (OFAC), the UK’s HM Treasury, the European Union, and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA). SWIFT performs sanctions list updates at no additional charge and the service is used by more than 371 financial institutions in nearly 120 countries.