The launch follows a testing period supported by 18 corporate groups and 16 global banks, amounting to over 7,000 corporate-to-bank relationships on SWIFT.

The KYC process continues to produce compliance challenges for corporate groups, as varied regulation across jurisdictions means treasurers often have to provide this data in multiple formats through bilateral exchanges to meet specific regulatory requirements.

Banks have the struggle of having to reach out to corporate customers for data which is often spread across various sources, incomplete, and out of date.

The registry simplifies the KYC process by providing access to a secure platform for banks, and now corporates to share the sensitive data. The registry is advantageous for corporates as they can structure KYC data in line with a standardised baseline agreed to by both banks and corporates, with SWIFT checking this information for completeness.

Bart Claeys, head of KYC and reference data, SWIFT, says that the registry “will speed up corporate payments, while providing the assurance of being fully compliant with KYC requirements.

“Collaborating with banks and corporates has provided detailed insights into the current barriers to effective KYC due diligence and, through our global platform, we will continue this work to provide solutions which simplify the KYC process for all participants involved.”

Rosanna Summerville, manager global transaction banking & processes, Unilever comments: “By participating in SWIFT’s working group, we were able to collaborate with our banking partners and other corporate groups to address challenges faced by both sides of the KYC process.

"The result means we can now upload our data in a standardised format to SWIFT’s KYC Registry, reducing the need to provide data in multiple formats to each of our banking partners, who in turn will no longer have to request KYC data every time they need it, delivering efficiencies for us both.”