Damian Mifsud, CEO of award winning managed KYC and KYB services firm QGEN Group, shares his views about the current compliance landscape and its evolution, together with how his company developed an approach which satisfies all client’s needs in this space.
Starting off Mr. Mifsud explains the importance of having a sound compliance function - Compliance is not about ticking the regulatory tick boxes but it can benefit organisations in the medium to long term with less fraud and stronger client-bases based on transparency and integrity. Carrying effective AML checks will keep fraudsters at bay and subsequently reduce risks such as licence suspension or revocation, hefty fines and the reputational damage that is so difficult to fix.
In the current landscape companies such as iGaming outfits are looking for service providers that can offer an end-to-end KYC solution ranging from the initial process-mapping meetings, to the seamless integration in the onboarding process to the ongoing monitoring and reporting iterative cycle. Gone are the days where online business operators, say in FinTech, plug an automated identity verifier as their KYC service provider and stop there - this approach is increasingly becoming redundant. The trend nowadays is to have one front which offers the full 360 degree spectrum of AML checks from simple age checks to PEP checks, document checks, and the more sophisticated Source of Wealth and Source of Funds checks. We at QGEN have married the commercial and regulatory worlds to offer a solution which keeps ‘customer experience’ ‘user journeys’ and ‘online conversions’ at the centre of it all. The ultimate goal is always to strive to reduce customer abandonment - a lot of effort is put in the lead generation and attracting potential clients, hence KYC needs to be spot on, frictionless and efficient… all this in an agile and cost effective manner to banks, remote gambling and payment processing companies.
When companies set up their compliance function more often than not, they end up with a myriad of systems integrated to cover all the functional and regulatory requirements imposed by the regulatory framework. This approach is inundated with duplication of effort, overlaps in paid-for services and result in multiple points of failure. QGEN has along the years invested in best-of-breed AI technology backed by a 24x7 multilingual team of compliance experts - this to provide a holistic solution to all KYC and KYB needs. With physical offices in Malta, the company services clients all over the globe, operating in various sectors and controlled by different jurisdiction authorities. Part of the company’s ethos has always been to offer ‘personal attention’ to all its clients and in fact all clients are assigned an account delivery manager to meet on regular basis to discuss the in and outs of the day-to-day compliance operations.
The disruption which we firmly believe in is to offer KYC and KYB services delivered by manual checks backed by technology-driven checks. Compliance is a human experience… a customer experience; an automated check can never offer the same level of service quality. In our experience we find that despite all the technological efforts, there still remains a degree of manual intervention required to plug any gaps and to dive deeper into any specific cases.
To conclude Damian went on to explain that the winning AML formula in this day and age is ‘AI Tech + Field experts organised in a continual improvement iterative approach’. Asked where he sees KYC going, QGEN’s CEO elaborated that, KYC checks will be an integral part of customer profiling and that ‘Identity’ will be the key component of any online business transaction. Checking and verifying one’s identity will ignite online transactions, going forward. All compliance checks will revolve around identity and once users’ identity is verified, the trust gap is bridged, and organisations can focus on fostering the the client relationship.
About QGEN Group:
QGEN is a global player in the compliance sphere offering managed KYC and KYB services and AML advisory. QGEN offers a truly global KYC solution, which includes both electronic and manual verification checks, and works with / for; Prepaid card providers, issuing and acquiring banks, insurance companies, real estate agents, iGaming companies, auditors, accountants, tax and financial advisors and more. Visit www.QGENGroup.com for more information
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Content and Images supplied by QGEN Group
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