KYC utility is one of the hottest contemporary developments among the AML compliance in financial institutions.  With a KYC utility, customer due diligence, risk assessment and ongoing monitoring are handled by a group of independent KYC experts, reserving the financial institutions to concentrate on their core businesses.  In addition, once a customer submits his information to a KYC utility, subject to his authorization, the KYC results and supporting documents will be shared among many financial institutions, thus eliminating the repeated KYC efforts from both financial institutions and customers.

In this seminar, Dr. LAM Yat-fai will explain the compliance motivations behind and economic benefits arising from KYC utilities.  On the other hand, through game theory, Dr. LAM will also predict the failure of KYC utilities in an open market and conclude the necessity of regulations on KYC utilities as a critical success factor.  Finally, Dr. LAM will contrast the major participants in the market of KYC utilities, including Thomson Reuters, Markit-Genpack and SWIFT, and share the implementation stories of KYC utilities in other regions.