Financial services firms will soon have at their fingertips a new report offered by SWIFT that provides a global overview of a banking institution’s correspondent banking activities. The new service will be available in January 2015 and forms part of SWIFT’s Know Your Customer (KYC) Registry, which is designed to address the growing KYC challenge for banks.

SWIFT is a member-owned cooperative that provides the communications platform, products and services to connect more than 10,500 banking organisations, securities institutions and corporate customers in 215 countries and territories. Its new report, SWIFT Profile, uses aggregated SWIFT traffic data to help banks pinpoint areas of potential risk within specific jurisdictions and supports due diligence activities. It provides an independent fact-based overview of both the direct and nested correspondent banking activities of a specific bank.

“By providing a global summary of an institution’s SWIFT traffic activities, the SWIFT Profile can help banks to focus their due diligence efforts and improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their KYC assessments,” David Fleet, managing director, CDD and Middle Office for Standard Chartered Bank said in a prepared statement.

The SWIFT Profile also acts as a business enabler for institutions that wish to provide more transparency on their correspondent banking activities. Banks have the option of asking SWIFT to create their institution’s SWIFT Profile, which the banks can then share with their counterparties at their discretion, using the KYC Registry. Each bank retains full control over which institutions can view its SWIFT Profile information.

“The SWIFT Profile will enable banks to better assess their counterparties’ own declared behavior and gain insights into potential risks posed by the activities of their counterparties and those institutions’ customers," Luc Meurant, SWIFT's head of banking markets and compliance services, said. "Likewise, it will also help banks provide more transparency to their correspondent banking service providers.”

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