Clientvo answers

Every answer below is aimed at a question people measurably search for, is written from named sources, and links to the page that handles the job itself. None of them is a landing page in disguise.

Every guide here answers one question the person who owns a firm's KYC actually types, and every one of them ends in the same place: the free know your customer requirements checklist, which sizes what your own customer files have to hold and how much of your book has no review date on it.

• KYC compliance: what a small US firm actually has to hold

  What KYC compliance means for a small US firm: the identification, the rating, the approval and a review date that survives being asked for.

• The KYC process, start to finish, including the review most firms drop

  The KYC process as it actually runs: collect, rate, approve, record, review. Where each step lives and which one firms quietly skip.

• Customer due diligence: what it is and what the file holds

  Customer due diligence explained for a small US firm: what the file holds, how the rating changes it, and why the review date is the hard part.

• Know your business (KYB): what it means when the customer is a company

  KYB explained: what know your business means when your customer is a company, what the file holds, and how it differs from KYC on a person.

• Enhanced due diligence: what it adds to a customer file

  What enhanced due diligence adds to a customer file, which customers get it, and why the shorter review interval matters more than the extra documents.

• Customer identification program: what it requires, from verification to retention

  What a customer identification program has to do: the information collected, the verification, the records kept, and how long they are kept for.

• KYB compliance: the business customer file, and who ends up carrying it

  What KYB compliance asks of a firm onboarding business customers: entity evidence, ownership traced to people, a rating, an approver and a review date.

• Know your business checks: what to run, and what each one proves

  The checks that make up a KYB file, what each one proves, and why recording which check was run matters as much as running it.

• Know your customer laws in the United States: where the obligations come from, and how to define KYC without collapsing it into one rule

  Where US know your customer obligations actually come from, what each layer requires, and why no single law is the whole of KYC.

• KYC information: what a customer file holds, evidence and judgement

  What information a KYC file holds, which parts are evidence and which are judgement, and what a complete customer profile looks like.

• KYC KYB: one policy, two evidence sets

  KYC and KYB compared: the same obligation with two evidence sets, where the work differs, and why most firms should run one policy.

• KYC onboarding: the file it should leave behind

  What KYC onboarding should leave behind: a customer file with evidence, a rating, an approver and a review date, not just an accepted account.

• Ultimate beneficial owner: what a UBO is and where the check has to end

  What an ultimate beneficial owner is, the ownership threshold that puts one in the file, and where a UBO check has to stop.

• The definition of beneficial ownership, and how a customer file is judged against it

  What beneficial ownership means for a customer file, the two prongs the definition has, and how to record the answer so it is defensible.

• KYC tools: what the category actually contains, and which part we are

  The KYC tools category broken into its four real products, what each one does, and which of them a record-keeping product is not.

• KYC verification software: what automated KYC verification can decide on its own, what it cannot, and what the file has to keep either way

  What KYC verification software does, where automation stops and judgement starts, and what has to be recorded whichever way the check ran.

• Perpetual KYC, and the remediation that has to come before it

  What perpetual KYC means, what it needs to work, and why a firm with an unreviewed back book has to remediate before it can go continuous.

• The KYB process step by step, and what to buy for it

  The KYB process from entity to owners to review, and an honest split of what the solutions in this category do and do not cover.

• KYC SaaS: what buying it as a service actually means

  What KYC SaaS covers, what stays your firm's responsibility however it is bought, and the questions worth asking before signing.

• KYC cost: how to work out your own, from four inputs

  How to calculate KYC cost for your own firm: onboarding time, review load, approvals and the backlog nobody counts.

• KYC automation: what should and should not be automated

  Which parts of KYC automate well, which must not be automated, and how to record an automated decision so it is defensible later.

• Electronic know your customer: what changes, and what does not

  What electronic KYC changes, what it does not, and the record a digital process still has to leave behind.

• KYC due diligence: where the check ends and the record starts

  How KYC and CDD fit together in one policy, what each name is doing, and the practical boundary that actually matters.

• KYC and due diligence: what each word buys you, inside and outside compliance

  KYC and due diligence in plain terms for people outside compliance, and how the same words are used inside a regulated firm.

• Customer risk assessment: building a rating that holds up

  How to build a customer risk rating that survives being questioned: the factors, the model, the reason and the review interval it sets.

• The high risk customer: the four things that change once the rating is made

  What changes when a customer is rated high risk: the evidence, the approval, the review interval and the written rationale.

• Source of wealth in a customer file: what evidence establishes it, how sources of wealth differ from source of funds, and when the question has to be asked

  Source of wealth explained: how it differs from source of funds, what evidence is usually enough, and when the question has to be asked.

• Simplified due diligence and the standard level: what each collects

  What simplified and standard due diligence mean, when a lower level is defensible, and what has to be on the file either way.

• CDD and EDD: the levels, side by side

  CDD and EDD compared step by step: what escalation adds, who decides it, and how a policy should describe the boundary.

• The enhanced due diligence process, step by step

  The enhanced due diligence process step by step, what each step produces, and where it rejoins the ordinary CDD process.

• Enhanced due diligence is necessary when your own model says so

  When enhanced due diligence is required: the categories that commonly trigger it and why your own model has to make the call.

• The enhanced due diligence report, and the checklist that produces it

  What an enhanced due diligence report contains, the checklist that feeds it, and how the standard customer due diligence checklist is shorter.

• Enhanced due diligence KYC: the ongoing half, between reviews

  How enhanced due diligence fits into a KYC program, and what ongoing monitoring of an enhanced relationship actually involves.

• KYC fintech obligations in practice, and how merchant KYC differs when your customers are businesses taking payments

  KYC for fintechs that are regulated through a partner, and how merchant KYC differs when the customer is a business taking payments.