Are KYC and AML 'pointless'?

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Karen Wendel, CEO of IdenTrust examines the need for proper KYC, while acknowledging the unnecessary friction those regulations sometimes cause.

Comments: (3)

A Finextra member 

Some good and very cogent remarks from Karen here. My concern is not with inanimate end points becoming self-aware, and although I believe the maintenance system behind two disparate inanimate objects mutually authenticating, it is and will be possible. My concern is more with the ordinary actor in this scene, the consumer, who at present regards his identity and those charged with its creation, storage and maintence with feelings previously reserved for lawyers and real estate agents. I believe that the first move would be to persuade the consumer that his identity is worth creating and maintaining as much as he now does for his credit history. This will allow him to "invest" in a good KYC process, thus incentivising suppliers of such services, and the operation federated trust infrastructure .

A Finextra member 

Nothing like self-actualizing the terminator!   Very good interview. 

A Finextra member 

There seem to be two themes - one about managing our digital identities as held by those organisations who have checked us out, and, the role out of spin off identities that get created as we create links between those organisations and overlay extras such as the inanimate "fridges".

One point that was only touched on was the variety of ways in which regulators believe identity can be proven (and our lack of knowledge and therefore abilty to trust those systems). Mother's birth certificate is one extreme (I hope) of a spectrum, but serves to prove an issue in my world of international payments. Can I trust the source of a payment, and will I be fined if "dodgy" money moves through my systems. If my US bank customer receives money from Argentina, should I even allow them to have it when the regulations seem at odds with my regulators expectations. Conversely, the World Bank sees identity as a lower prioirity to facilitating remittances ro the developing world. PSPs in the UK have had to go to law to get Barclays to review its approach to not allowing moeny to be sent to Somalia.