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KYC: safeguarding the sustainability of your business

9 May 2019

Business Insight

‘KYC’: as a marketplace or crowdfunding platform you can’t escape the implications of this acronym, which governs how to identify clients online. These three letters conceal a highly technical and circumscribed authentication process that can sometimes be daunting. Lemonway is here to help shed some light on the matter by answering a few questions.

What is KYC?

The acronym KYC, or Know Your Customer, refers to the duty of every company to collect and update information needed to know who their clients are. As a financial institution, Lemonway is required by applicable laws for the prevention of money laundering and financing of terrorism to request a certain number of documents verifying the identity of sellers holding accounts on your marketplace.

What does that mean in practice for you and your customers?

A number of data points will be requested of the account-holder, including their first and last names, birthdate, nationality, country of residence and email address. In order to confirm a payment account, it will also be necessary to upload certain documents, such as valid proof of identity, a second form of identification or proof of residence, bank details, registration documents if the holder is incorporated, and so on.

How does Lemonway contribute to the KYC process?

Lemonway spares you this verification process by collecting the information required via its automated API based on OCR technology (Optical Character Recognition). Should any doubt or suspicion of fraud arise, our KYC team of legal and cybersecurity specialists immediately steps in.

The average verification period for the KYC documentation associated with a payment account is 24 hours (48hrs for a corporate payment account). To meet your needs and contingencies, processing can be fast-tracked and personalised by request for complete within 1 hour, 4 hours, or a custom duration.

From your Enterprise Back-Office, you can easily view the management and validation of KYC documents, the reasons behind a rejection should one occur, and elect to receive automated notifications using an API.

All this may seem restrictive and tedious at first brush, however, these precautionary principles handed down by regulators ensure your safety—and that of your end clients—by protecting you from identity theft, financial fraud and other illicit activity. As such, it is a proof of the trustworthiness, responsibility and sustainability of your business.

If you wish to learn more, our KYC team is at your service.