Onboarding people through the Internet is a world in itself. Since the WWW came along in 1991, online companies and organizations have onboarded people to their systems in a variety of ways. 30 years has passed, and the once classical “username and password” has become obsolete for more and more online companies in a world that is going online in an increasing way. Now mobile and information technologies allow us a wide range of actions to identify and verify the identity of someone online. Technologies available are so broad, and they change so quickly, that it´s easy to feel a little confused among pop-upping names and acronyms.
That´s why we bring you today a fundamental glosary of KYC-related terms. Chill out, and check out our KYC Cheatsheet ;).
AML: “Anti Money Laundering” Prevent any transaction that could lead to laundering money. This includes checks against international watchlists and sanctions databases.
Biometrics: Body measurements and calculations related to human characteristics. Unique traits of particular parts of the body can be used to identify persons or to match two images ot the person.
CDD: “Customer Due Diligence” – evaluating every customer before doing business with him.
Compliance: adhering to a set of legislation, regulations, rules, policies, specifications or norms. Typically, every country has its own set of compliance requirements.
Face Match: Comparing the Photo from the provided government ID to the person present in front of the camera. By employing AI based technology the system identifies and compares biometrics to find out if the two faces match or not.
ID: a document validating the identity of a person, typically issued by a government. The range of IDs that can be accepted can vary depending on the regulations of the juristiction and industry, eg passports or drivers licenses.
KYB: Know Your Business – the principle of identifying and evaluating every business and its significant actors including validation of corporate hierarchies and identifying significant owners.
KYC: “Know Your Customer” the principle of identifying and evaluating every customer before doing business with him.
Liveness Detection: This functionality of a KYC process checks if a real (alive) user is in front of the camera. It must detect any attempt to trick the system by holding pictures or videos of the actual person in front of the camera.
PEP: “Political Exposed Persons” People in political positions that may make them vulnerable to corruption.
PSD2: “Payment Service Directive”
Re-Verification: Re-identifying the customer before certain high-risk transactions are processed.