Bolivia’s banking community adopts Swift’s KYC
Bolivia © Wikipedia
Bolivia’s banking community has connected to Swift’s Know Your Customer (KYC) Registry, a centralised repository which maintains a standardised set of information about financial institutions required for KYC compliance.
Since December 2014, the KYC Registry has been adopted by more than 2,350 financial institutions globally to “complement” existing compliance programmes.
In Latin America, the Registry is now used by domestic and international banks in every country across the region, states Swift. In addition to Bolivia, several other jurisdictions have endorsed the Registry through central banks or financial communities, including the Dominican Republic, Panama, and Costa Rica.
Alvaro Alvarez Monasterios, president of Bolivia’s Bank Association Compliance Commission, says: “Swift’s efforts to create the KYC Registry and engage the financial community are instrumental in the global fight against money laundering and financial crime. The Registry’s value in mitigating financial crime risks is unrivalled in this market.”
The KYC Registry, operated by Swift, provides KYC information for correspondent banks as well as fund distributors and custodians. Banks contribute an agreed “baseline” set of data and documents for validation by Swift, which 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 users.
Each enrolled institution can also order its Swift Traffic Profile as an additional service and share this set of reports with its counterparties at its discretion.
The Swift Traffic Profile helps banks understand potential risks in their correspondent networks by providing a single, aggregated view of their transaction activity with higher-risk jurisdictions, Swift says.
Additional services will be added to the Registry in the course of 2016, according to Swift.
