It is an inescapable fact that for effective ID verification, and therefore KYC and AML compliance, financial services companies need to access to billions of records in real-time to ensure adequate checks are made while onboarding a new customer, and deliver that all-important smooth customer experience.

The issue is, if you are a financial services organisation with a global reach the types of information available to carry out effective ID verification differs between countries. Outside of passport information, states often take different approaches to the types of and range of information they collect and store on their citizens; whether they are on ID cards, driving licenses, or a registry of home ownership. Also needed to be factored in is that some countries, such as Germany, have more stringent privacy laws than others on accessing data on their citizens; sometimes making it difficult to obtain valuable information. Then, of course, the way contact details such as addresses are formatted around the world vary, which can create headaches when it comes to the ID verification process.

As things stand, those in financial services find themselves using different local data sources in each country for ID verification, meaning the entire process at a global level lacks any consistency, and more often than not, quality, impacting on best practice and compliance in AML and KYC.

In an ideal world there would be one access point that provides consistent, relevant data for ID verification throughout the world.

Ideally it needs to be a cloud-based solution that not only checks but helps enrich the customer data, and will easily integrate across all systems and technologies. It will also need to be recognised by the regulators in financial services at a country, regional and global level. 

Blockchain has the potential to play a role in the future as that ID verification access point, because of the way it operates in securely holding personal data. However, this will be a long way down the line as blockchain needs to build confidence in its use beyond the cryptocurrency sector. Also, before blockchain can be implemented it will need to be governed by the same level of compliance as experienced by everyone else who operates in the financial services space.

As technology improves and globalisation continues apace, in all likelihood there will be one global ID verification source in the future. Until we get to that point, with the ID verification marketplace evolving fast, it’s important for organisations in financial services to keep their finger on the pulse of developments in this sector, and ensure they source suppliers that provide the appropriate mix and volume of data, in real-time, for their global ID needs.