Stéphanie Rodríguez Aniorté, Head Global Product IFI - GTB at Santander says, "This SWIFT initiative will help Santander Group to comply with the KYC requirements in a more trustworthy, efficient and effective way. The standardization of processes and the creation of a ‘unique repository' will allow the FI teams to focus on business growth that is compliant."

With The KYC Registry, 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. 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.

Luc Meurant, Head of Compliance Services at SWIFT, says: "The KYC Registry is a key initiative behind SWIFT's commitment to help its community comply with financial crime compliance regulations. We are very pleased with the level of participation in the Registry, both from large global and regional banks as well as financial communities. Adding Banco Santander to our growing list of participants demonstrates the value the KYC Registry is bringing to the correspondent banking community."

Launched in December 2014, the KYC Registry includes 1,470 financial institutions in 176 countries, facilitating compliance with a growing number of correspondent relationships worldwide. The KYC Registry is operated by SWIFT and was developed in collaboration with major global banks around the world.