Aligning customer data management for Know Your Customer (KYC) compliance

Before they could comply with KYC, this regional bank needed an MDM solution that was up to the challenge.

At a glance:

When a major regional bank faced potential fines under Know Your Customer (KYC) regulations, they knew an updated master data management (MDM) solution had to come first … and they needed it fast. That’s why they contacted us.

Customer challenge

Facing potential fines due to KYC regulation violations, a regional bank was given only nine months to fix their compliance issues. The organization’s “homegrown” MDM solutions were not up to the task, and they needed not only a new platform but also a new customer data ecosystem that enabled a seamless flow from onboarding throughout the customer lifetime.

The bank’s IT team had decided on Informatica as their new data integration platform and needed architecture expertise to implement a holistic solution. Complicating the situation was the fact that individual lines of business (LOBs) had built their own IT teams and implemented their own solutions, resulting in 23 separate customer data systems that the new MDM architecture would need to accommodate.

Why they chose us

We had successfully completed numerous projects for this client, and they were aware of our two Partner of the Year awards from Informatica. Knowing first-hand the quality of our work and our experience with Informatica on MDM and integration projects, the client decided we were the right choice for this project.

Approach and solution

We met with the bank’s teams from IT, compliance, and individual LOBs to better understand the requirements from each stakeholder’s perspective and to ensure that the new customer data solution aligned with KYC requirements.

One issue we noticed early on was that, while all LOBs were using the same platform for customer onboarding (Appian), each was using it in a slightly different capacity. To deliver the coordination the bank needed while accommodating LOBs’ need for flexibility, we created an Appian Center of Excellence that required a common code base across all business lines.

Coordinating a team of 150 people, we implemented an architecture that spanned customer onboarding (Appian), MDM (Informatica), and a middle tier that coordinated the information along KYC screening and scoring guidelines.

Value and benefits – “The Wins”

We implemented a KYC-ready MDM solution across 23 systems in just over nine months. Each new customer now receives a single party ID that encompasses all their products (personal banking, business banking, wealth management, etc.) and follows them throughout the customer lifecycle. This seamless tracking of customers across lines of business and across products is essential to the KYC process, offering an enterprise-wide, holistic view that enables our client to perform more accurate risk scoring, assess affiliations, improve screening, and identify suspicious activity.

This improvement in master data management also allows the bank to offer a more integrated customer experience, both in the call center and online. Customers can log in and see all their products in one place, and call center representatives can deliver more efficient service when a caller’s entire record is available to them on a single screen.

For new customer onboarding, KYC screening can involve any combination of 1,200 different questions, depending on the customer. Our client now incorporates a customized questionnaire into every customer’s intake process and feeds the responses into a KYC screening and scoring algorithm. Finally, we implemented a change management program to ensure that the bank has the right structure and processes in place to support the new systems.