Identity Verification: A Starting Point and Important Ingredient to Unlocking Transparency Complying with regulation requires financial services providers to be transparent about their decision-making policies, processes and reasons behind the choices they make. Today, and as regulations tighten in the future, this ability to explain to regulators why a consumer was declined or denied access to services will be an important element in a financial institution’s compliance arsenal. Transparency around policies, procedures and decisions hasn’t been easy for financial services providers to achieve. This is especially true when it comes to verifying customer identities. The culprit? The identity verification solutions that many banks rely on utilize ambiguous scoring and machine-learning models that don’t provide closed-loop data feedback for visibility into decisioning. In this sense, financial services providers lack the data transparency needed to understand why a decision was made so they can accurately speak to regulators and defend their choices. A critical first step is selecting integration partners that pack their results with analytics, result codes and data that can be used to make informed decisions and adjust machine-learning systems to higher levels of sophistication that reduce false positives and eliminate bias. On the path to transparency, financial services providers must also:

• Implement an onboarding tool for consistency in educating new employees on compliance with Know Your Customer (KYC) minimums and anti-money laundering policies for spotting high-risk activity and fraudulent activity. While most financial institutions act on policies that were built to meet regulatory guidelines, risk can creep in depending on how those policies are implemented and enforced.
• Track policy changes. Many regulators offer subscriptions to newsletters and notices. Additionally, news aggregators, such as Google News, can help financial services providers stay on top of changing regulations. As regulations change, ensure the staff and technology needed to adapt are in place and shifting policies are transparent throughout the organization.
• Work with technology partners that are also tracking regulatory changes and offering solutions to help you comply.
• Ensure technology partners have tools for quick change management with little-to-no integration requirement for managing KYC.
• Put case-management tools in place to address fraud and risk reviews and address consumer requests. These tools should provide deep insights into account-opening details and offer analytics or links between data used at account opening and in other areas of the business such as payments, ACH deposits, debit activity and credit activity. This will provide insights throughout the customer journey, especially for suspect accounts that incubate over time and later “bust out.”
• Foster a harmonious and tight relationship between Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and risk teams. Compliance, anti-money laundering and fraud prevention teams should work closely together so that new policies can be implemented quickly.

While financial services technologies have moved faster than regulations, the tide is turning. Regulators will soon catch up with artificial intelligence, machine learning and other emerging technologies, such as blockchain. At the same time, consumers are more empowered than ever and excited about new payment methods and....--> The banking industry is in the midst of a radical shift. Rapid digital adoption alongside growing consumer expectations for an Amazon-like experience has accelerated the industry’s move away from legacy systems and antiquated processes. At the same time, fraud surged during the pandemic, catching the attention of legislators and shining a light on the need for new regulations to better protect consumer data. All of these factors point to new challenges for financial services providers that no doubt have their work cut out for them. Keeping pace with the regulatory activity alone is a big job and one that can’t be ignored, particularly with the multitude of recent revisions to the Bank Secrecy, Community Reinv...

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