What COVID-19 has emphasized for hedge fund administration KYC is the need for a digitized solution in the age of social distancing and remote working. A spotlight has been shone on organisations that are lagging behind. We are in a rather unique place in time where innovation is proving to be more important than ever.
Businesses are essentially being forced into investing in areas they may have previously been avoiding, such as digital transformation and advanced analytics. Companies are now at a unique place where they can leverage innovation more than ever. This COVID crisis has highlighted how important digital capabilities and products are, as well as how important speed and seamless integration are.
Remote working
Remote working and the fear of contamination have triggered an industry-wide rush to adopt electronic verification. Relying solely on paper documents and requiring customers to have documents certified makes it immensely difficult to comply with the regulations surrounding the Coronavirus.
As it stands, for many services, customers are not able to present documents in person. Even if documents are sent through the mail, there is still a risk of contamination (not to mention the added hassle) and many are currently working remotely. Sending personal documents to someone’s home address isn’t exactly appealing and is a big security concern.
Electronic KYC
Electronic KYC verification solves a lot of these problems. No documents are required to be mailed or certified and the whole process can be carried out remotely from the comfort of end-users’ homes on their own electronic devices.
Regulatory considerations
In fact, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is currently recommending that digital on-boarding be used whenever possible. It’s clear that the future of KYC procedures is going digital, and that changes need to be made now to keep up.
It is extremely important that through all this innovation and development, that regulatory standards are upheld to the highest levels to ensure full compliance with the AML rules and regulations. Here at Charter Group Fund Administration Ltd, we are investing in innovation and in the near future will be rolling out electronic ID verification and simplifying hedge Fund administration KYC procedures for our clients and their investors. We believe that eventually digital KYC procedures will become more commonplace and we’ll be pleased to have been at the forefront of this movement.