A group of six top Nordic banks is forging ahead with plans to set up a joint platform for handling Know Your Customer (KYC) data.
Having secured European Commission approval for the platform, Danske Bank, DNB Bank, Nordea, SEB, Svenska Handelsbanken and Swedbank have set up a joint venture company to build the platform.
The new company is autonomous and will initially, from next year, offer KYC services to the market concerning large and medium-sized companies based in the Nordic region.
In recent years, compliance with requirements for processing customer data has become a critical component in fighting financial crime and a growing regulatory overhead for the banking community.
Bank customers are, however, struggling with time-consuming KYC information requirements, often including many banks and formats.
Fredrik Millde, interim CEO, Nordic KYC utility, says: "The collaboration between all banks has been both effective and successful.
"Together, we have in a short period of time worked on a Nordic KYC utility standard for compliant KYC information and explored alternatives for a future digital solution."