KYC/AML | Finance Automation

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Finance

KYC/AML Compliance Automation

Automated identity verification, sanctions screening, and ongoing monitoring for financial services.

Finance automation case study featuring document processing and workflow automation.

-85%

Verification Time

-60%

False Positives

100%

Compliance Coverage

Overview

A fintech company needed to scale customer onboarding while maintaining KYC/AML compliance. Manual verification was a bottleneck, and ongoing monitoring was inconsistent. The automation reduced verification time by 85%.

Business Context

The fintech was experiencing explosive user growth with customer sign-ups increasing 300% year-over-year, but their compliance team couldn't keep pace with manual identity verification requirements. Customer onboarding was taking 3-5 business days due to document review backlogs, causing significant drop-off during the signup funnel — analytics showed 40% of potential customers abandoned applications before verification completed. Meanwhile, regulatory scrutiny was increasing as the firm grew, and they had received examiner feedback about gaps in their ongoing monitoring program and concerns about the consistency of their verification decisions. They faced a critical choice: hire a large compliance team that would erode unit economics and still might not scale fast enough, or find a technology solution that could handle exponential growth while actually improving compliance quality and reducing risk.

How We Built It

We built a multi-layered compliance automation system that handles the full customer lifecycle from initial onboarding through ongoing transaction monitoring and periodic reviews. The identity verification layer integrates with multiple ID verification APIs including Jumio, Onfido, and regional providers, implementing liveness detection to prevent photo spoofing, document authenticity checks that analyze security features and detect manipulated images, and address verification against authoritative databases. Real-time screening queries OFAC, UN sanctions, EU consolidated lists, state-specific lists, PEP databases covering 240+ countries, and adverse media sources simultaneously, with intelligent matching algorithms that reduce false positives by understanding name variations, transliterations, common aliases, date format differences, and the linguistic patterns of different naming conventions. The AI-powered review system analyzes potential matches in context, considering factors like transaction geography, account history, and match strength to automatically clear obvious false positives while routing genuine concerns to compliance officers with all relevant information pre-assembled including match details, customer context, and similar historical cases. For ongoing monitoring, transaction pattern analysis runs continuously using machine learning models trained on the firm's specific risk indicators, flagging unusual activity based on customer profiles, peer group comparisons, and behavioral baselines. The case management system provides a complete audit trail with timestamped decisions, supporting documentation, reviewer notes, and escalation history that satisfies examiner requirements and enables efficient case handoffs. Automated regulatory reporting generates SARs, CTRs, and other required filings in the formats required by different jurisdictions, with review workflows that ensure timely filing and track submission confirmations.

Challenges

Manual identity document review

High false positive rates on sanctions screening

No ongoing monitoring

Audit trail incomplete

Onboarding delays losing customers

What We Delivered

Automated ID verification with liveness detection

Real-time sanctions and PEP screening

AI-powered false positive reduction

Ongoing transaction monitoring

Complete audit trail with case management

Regulatory reporting automation

Tech Stack

Identity verification APIs, Sanctions databases, Make.com, Retool, PostgreSQL, OpenAI

Results

-85%

Verification Time

-60%

False Positives

100%

Compliance Coverage

Strategic Impact

The 85% reduction in verification time transformed customer acquisition economics, reducing customer acquisition cost by over 25% through improved funnel conversion. Onboarding now completes in minutes rather than days, dramatically improving conversion rates through the signup funnel and eliminating the customer frustration that previously generated negative reviews and support tickets. The 60% reduction in false positives means compliance officers spend their time investigating genuine risks rather than clearing obvious non-matches, improving both efficiency and job satisfaction — compliance staff turnover has decreased significantly since implementation. The ongoing monitoring program that was previously ad-hoc is now comprehensive and consistent, giving leadership confidence that regulatory requirements are being met continuously rather than checked periodically, and that emerging risks are detected promptly. Examiner feedback has shifted from criticism to praise, with regulators specifically noting the quality of the audit trail, the sophistication of the monitoring program, and the consistency of verification decisions across the customer base. The firm has been able to enter new markets with complex regulatory requirements, including European markets requiring GDPR-compliant processing and Asian markets with specific local verification requirements, confident that their compliance infrastructure can handle the additional complexity. Most importantly, the automation has created a sustainable model for growth — the compliance function now scales with customer volume without proportional headcount increases, enabling the firm to maintain healthy unit economics even as they expand into new customer segments and geographies.