KYC

South African KYC Utility powered by Thomson Reuters Org ID

Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) realises that you and your organisation go through many frustrating man-hours to ensure that you are compliant with the ever-increasing Know Your Customer (KYC) and other legislative regulations. With these pressures and frustrations in mind, Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) has collaborated with other South African Corporate and Investment banks such as ABSA and Standard Bank to offer you a new, collaborative and simplified Know Your Customer (KYC) managed service provided by Thomson Reuters Org ID.

What is the Thomson Reuters South African KYC Utility?

The South African KYC Utility is a result of an unprecedented partnership among the largest financial institutions in South Africa and Thomson Reuters to facilitate the collection and distribution of KYC information for our clients. Clients such as large corporates, hedge funds and asset managers can use the utility as an efficient, centralised solution to distribute KYC documents and information through a secure, web-based portal.

Benefits for our clients:

Security

Secure storage and data dissemination via a web-based portal; access to the portal is password protected.

Cost-effective

The KYC utility is completely free for clients to provide their client identity documents to RMB and other financial counterparties.

Control

You control the distribution of your information. Audit trails are also provided, evidencing the distribution of documents as and when this occurs.

Efficiency

A KYC utility streamlines the distribution process of your KYC information and documentation allowing it to be stored and maintained centrally, to be used as and when needed, across multiple financial institutions.

Glossary of Terms — Basic KYC Terminology

ACCOUNT — A formal relationship to provide services or financial transactions.

AML — Anti-Money Laundering (AML) procedures, laws or regulations designed to stop the practice of making money that comes from illegal or unethical sources, look like it came from legal or legitimate sources. AML is a term mainly used in the financial and legal industries to describe the legal controls that require financial institutions and other regulated entities to prevent, detect and report money laundering activities. AML guidelines came into prominence globally as a result of the formation of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and the promulgation of an international framework of AML standards.

CDD — Customer Due Diligence (CDD) refers to the process of obtaining certain information about a prospective or existing customer to determine customer risk and monitor a customer’s activity for potential suspicious activity. It provides the complete lifecycle assessment and re-assessment of a customer’s risk as part of the know your customer (KYC) on-boarding process and the ongoing customer due diligence processes to allow firms to better identify, manage and mitigate customer-related risks.

CONTROLLING PARTIES — Individuals or entities with direct or indirect control over the account or the customer. For KYC purposes, examples of control parties are authorised signatories, power of attorney, executive management (eg., CEO and CFO), board of directors, guarantors, general partners for LLCs/LLPs, investment manager and/or fund sponsor for funds and trustees for trusts.

CUSTOMER (CLIENT) — An individual or legal entity such as a corporation, partnership, trust, estate or any other entity recognised as a legal person.

FI — Financial Institution (FI) including: foreign banks, savings associations and credit unions, securities broker-dealers, futures commission merchants and their introducing brokers, mutual funds, currency dealers or exchangers, money transmitters organised under foreign law.

EDD — Enhanced Due Diligence (EDD) refers to customers who pose higher money laundering or terrorist financing risks and therefore present an increased risk exposure to banks. Due diligence policies, procedures and processes should be enhanced as a result. EDD for higher-risk customers is especially critical in as far as understanding their anticipated transactions and implementing a suspicious activity monitoring system that reduces the bank’s reputation, compliance and transaction risks. Higher-risk customers and their transactions should be reviewed more closely at the account opening stages and more frequently throughout the term of their relationship with the bank.

Frequently asked questions

Should you require more information about the South African KYC Utility powered by Thomson Reuters Org ID, please contact your RMB Relationship Manager.

RMB is a leading African Corporate and Investment Bank.

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