In a digital world, clients expect to be able to sign up instantly, anywhere at any time, so the demand for face-to-face meetings is no longer a prerequisite for your business growth.
Firms who are slow to adopt and promote digital communication, to secure trust and build rapport with clients, place themselves at a disadvantage with their competitors.
Firms that resist this new way of delivering business and continue with manual processes will struggle with inefficiencies and poor security.
Seeing the recent requirement to reduce face-to-face meetings has meant firms have needed to quickly adapt in order to increase wallet share. Will this become the new normal and what does the future hold for Wealth and Asset Management Firms.
In this blog, we address the verification challenges that Wealth and Asset Management firms can overcome as they adapt and create opportunities from remote onboarding.
The challenge of regulatory compliance: MiFID II & AML
In today’s regulatory environment Wealth Management firms are obliged to perform an increasing number of compliance checks on their prospects or clients.
Firms need to perform in-depth Know Your Customer (KYC) verification on their individual and corporate clients to ensure Anti-Money Laundering compliance, along with thorough classification, suitability and appropriateness assessments to meet MiFID II obligation or other global regulations. With the recent pandemic, client face-to-face meetings are no longer an option in achieving client verification.
Firms must balance the need to deliver a positive customer experience for remote onboarding, whilst ensuring regulatory compliance and security obligations are met.
It is anticipated that the need for digital adoption will accelerate rapidly and Wealth Management firms will need to quickly adapt to achieve growth and develop short-to-medium-term execution plans. In addition, compliance teams must carefully monitor for the expected increase in cyber threats and frauds.
Ease of use for facial recognition technology
Remote facial or biometric recognition software is some of the latest technology to be applied to client onboarding within wealth management firms, making it easier for businesses to perform essential real-time Know Your Customer (KYC) processes.
Facial recognition technology is becoming more widely used in regulated industries, as it allows for robust KYC checks to be carried out remotely, rather than face-to-face within a branch or office. Selfie-based authentication can be performed at any time to prevent false or fraudulent accounts being set-up.
The technology has developed further to scan an individual’s facial features (captured during the selfie-taking process) and compare them against images used in formal identity documents such as Passports, ID cards and driver’s licenses.
How ‘Liveness Checks’ can combat fraud
‘Liveness’ detection is a vital feature for modern biometric-based recognition solutions, because it verifies that the person attempting to confirm their identity is a living subject and not a copy or imitation. Cybercriminals are increasingly trying to spoof these remote processes by using photos or videos of an individual’s authorised face, but ‘Liveness’ is designed to prevent these spoofing attacks.
Due to the threat of identity fraud, most of the leading remote KYC onboarding players have embedded some form of liveness detection as part of the verification process. ’Liveness’ detection combines biometric facial recognition, identity verification and lip-syncing authentication to reduce the chances of a spoofing attempt being successful.
Making Remote a Reality
In these unusual times, asking your clients to attend an office, to verify their identity before using your product or service, is a massive barrier to your business. The majority of today’s clients want the convenience of signing up for a product or service in minutes, often from a mobile phone. With ‘social distancing’ imperatives, firms need to efficiently respond to this increasingly preferred and socially-acceptable demand for remote onboarding.
Solutions from NorthRow
We have the experience of working with Wealth and Asset Management firms to deliver remote digital onboarding solutions. By partnering with our RegTech partners, muinmos, we can automate Know Your Customer (KYC) client classification, suitability, appropriateness and cross-border assessments and can tailor the solution to meet your requirements.
Our solutions can be deployed remotely with minimal time and effort to ensure swift delivery of a digital onboarding solution to ensure you can focus on delivering your business growth, continued customer service and business efficiencies.
For more information about how we can help your wealth asset firm in these changing times, email sales@northrow.com.
