Compliance business boss Tim Barnett joins the latest Today’s Conveyancer Podcast to discuss the work being done to improve the process, and experience for consumers, of anti-money laundering, customer due diligence and know your client verification.
As CEO of ID and AML verification business Credas, Tim is well aware of the challenges this presents to firms and suppliers and reminds us about the SRA’s warning notice at the end of 2023 which highlighted that up to 70% of firms were not fully compliance with anti-money laundering processes and procedures. And while he has sympathy with the idea that the burden of AML compliance falls heavily on conveyancers, he also points out the wider economic and societal role conveyancers and the wider property profession play in maintaining crime-free transactions. But he does acknowledge the administrative burden placed on the profession by legislation; something he and Credas are working hard to reduce.
He also provides some compliance pointers on how firms can ensure they remain the right side of AML compliance; warning that if firms are reliant upon ID document verification by email, or are not regularly re-running client verification checks, they will almost certainly not be compliant.
Credas are, like many organisations, looking at ways to harness artificial intelligence, but, warns Tim, they are now regularly coming up against documentation and supposed evidence submitted through their systems as part of AML verification, that has been created by AI; for the purposes of fraud and deception.
The discussion moves on to explore the work being done by government to introduce a legislative framework to enable the sharing of ID verification and client due diligence throughout the transaction; research conducted by Credas has identified a consumer will have to verify their identity 5.4 times during a typical housing transaction. The Digital Identity and Attributes Trust Framework (DIATF) creates the legislative environment to share this data, and provides a standard for digital identity providers to adhere to, to ensure their checks and reports can be relied upon.
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