Month: September 2022

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KYC and AML Risk Assessment for Customer Onboarding

kyc risk assessment

When onboarding new customers, financial institutions must balance the need to mitigate risk with the necessity to keep the customer experience frictionless. To that end, AML/KYC risk assessment is critical for onboarding new customers. Indeed, financial institutions are under increasing pressure to meet regulatory standards while making the customer onboarding process frictionless. The combination of digital and mobile technologies makes it easier than ever for customers to open new accounts.

As a result, financial institutions must maintain strict Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) standards while streamlining the onboarding process for new customers. In this article, we’ll explore different onboarding methods and how they impact your institution’s KYC/AML risk assessment.

What is AML/KYC Risk Assessment?

KYC/AML is an acronym standing for “Know Your Customer” and “Anti-Money Laundering.” These are compliance regulations that require financial institutions to verify the identity of their clients. This is done to prevent money laundering and other financial crimes. KYC is a procedure that requires financial institutions to collect and verify information about their customers. This data is then documented in an effort to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing.

KYC regulations are designed to strengthen the integrity of the financial sector and the wider economy by reducing crime and increasing trust. AML refers to the regulations that govern financial institutions’ due diligence when determining the source of their customers’ funds. For example, financial institutions must verify the source of funds deposited in accounts by customers who are opening new accounts. This is done to prevent money laundering.

Digital Customer Onboarding Methods

Digital onboarding methods are low-touch and mostly occur online. They include onboarding methods such as e-KYC, SMS verification, and OTP verification. E-KYC is the process of onboarding new customers digitally by collecting and verifying their identity and other relevant information. E-KYC uses the government-issued Unique Identification Number (UID) issued by the Indian government.

Once verified, the e-KYC process provides an electronic validation of the customer’s identity. This electronic verification is stored in an electronic format and is used to onboard new customers, transfer funds, and open new bank accounts.

E-KYC is the most common digital onboarding method. It is used by banks across the world to onboard new customers. SMS verification is a low-touch onboarding method that telecom companies commonly use to onboard new customers.

Manual KYC/AML Risk Assessment

Manual AML/KYC risk assessment is a low-to-moderate touch method that relies on a combination of digital and manual methods. It is an onboarding method that requires an initial review of customer information and documents that is followed by a final review of all customer information and documentation.

A manual review is necessary in order to accurately complete KYC/AML compliance. Manual KYC/AML risk assessment is the most common onboarding method. It is used by large money transfer companies and financial institutions that have large volumes of new customers. Manual AML/KYC risk assessment is conducted by an employee and typically involves reviewing documents such as passports, utility bills, and letters of employment.

This method is necessary to complete the full KYC/AML compliance for customers. Manual KYC/AML risk assessment is the traditional way that financial institutions onboard customers. It is done by reviewing customer information and documents by an employee. This process is necessary to complete the full AML/KYC compliance for customers.

Computerized AML/KYC Risk Assessment

Computerized KYC/AML risk assessment is a high-touch method that involves the use of technology to onboard customers. It is an onboarding method that uses technology to identify and verify customer information and documents. This onboarding method is often used by large financial institutions with high volumes of new customers.

Computerized KYC/AML risk assessment is done by an online system that uses algorithms to screen and filter documents. The system uses algorithms to identify common information found in identity documents such as passport numbers, birth dates, and driver’s license numbers. This onboarding method uses preloaded customer information to verify identity and collect the necessary information.

Computerized AML/KYC risk assessment is a high-touch onboarding method that relies on technology to collect customer information and verify identity. This method is necessary to complete the full KYC/AML compliance for customers. This method is used by large financial institutions. It is the most efficient way to onboard new customers.

Combination of Digital and Manual AML/KYC Risk Assessment

Co-editing is a high-touch method that uses both digital and manual methods to collect and verify customer information and documents. This onboarding method uses both technology and employees to collect and verify customer information and documents. Co-editing is a manual onboarding method that relies on employees to verify customer information and documents.

It also uses software to filter information and documents. Manual KYC/AML risk assessment is the most common onboarding method. It is done by an employee and typically involves reviewing documents such as passports, utility bills, and letters of employment. This method is necessary to complete the full AML/KYC compliance for customers. Co-editing is the most efficient way to onboard new customers.

Conclusion

KYC/AML risk assessment is critical for onboarding new customers. When onboarding new customers, financial institutions must balance the need to mitigate risk with the necessity to keep the customer experience frictionless.

To that end, AML and KYC risk assessment is critical for onboarding new customers. Indeed, financial institutions are under increasing pressure to meet regulatory standards while making the customer onboarding process frictionless. The combination of digital and mobile technologies makes it easier than ever for customers to open new accounts. As a result, financial institutions must maintain strict KYC and AML standards while streamlining the onboarding process for new customers.

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Enhanced Due Diligence: How Important is it for Banks?

enhanced due diligence

In today’s business and regulatory climate, a business has to take all precautionary steps to prevent fraud. This means identifying and verifying customers’ identities and meeting KYC guidelines. Whenever a financial institution starts a new business partnership with individuals or organizations without fully knowing their past and present business dealings, it can open the business to huge lawsuits and fines. EDD (Enhanced Due Diligence) can help businesses understand their customers.

As a matter of fact, over the last decade over $26 billion in fines have been imposed across the U.S., Europe, APAC, and the Middle East against financial institutions for KYC/AML. But KYC compliance goes beyond ticking some checkboxes. KYC helps financial institutions understand and serve their customers in a better way.

The KYC process is often carried out by financial institutions while opening new accounts with online users. Customer Due Diligence (CDD) is a vital part of KYC verification, which usually involves background checks to assess the risk they pose to a business. In the financial sector, this usually involves verifying the users for creditworthiness and ensuring that these people aren’t on a money laundering or counter terrorism financing watchlist.

Fortunately, most of these verifications and AML verification processes are becoming automated so businesses can offer a better customer experience during onboarding. With Customer Due Diligence (CDD) financial institutions perform important checks.

What is Enhanced Due Diligence?

(EDD) Enhanced Due Diligence is part of the KYC verification process that offers a greater level of scrutiny of potential business partnerships and highlights risks that can’t be detected by customer due diligence. Enhanced due diligence requirements are an upgraded version of CDD that looks to establish a better level of identity verification by using customer ID data and evaluating the risk category of the customer.

EDD is specifically designed for dealing with high-risk customers and large transactions. These customers and the transactions they conduct pose greater risks to the financial sector, these customers and transactions are continuously monitored to ensure that nothing is out of place. 

There are several characteristics that EDD from regular KYC policies:

  • Rigorous & Robust: EDD policies have to be rigorous and more robust and should require more data for customer authentication.
  • Detailed Documentation: The EDD process has to be documented in detail, and regulators should be able to have immediate access to enhanced due diligence reports.
  • Reasonable Assurance: EDD requirements require “reasonable assurance” while building a risk profile. 
  • Going Through PEPs: Banks and financial institutions need to pay attention to Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs) lists. People on these lists are viewed as being a higher risk because they are in positions that can be exploited for money laundering. 

Another major challenge with EDD is knowing how much information is there to collect. Regulators have consistently favored financial institutions that leverage documented policies & procedures.

More and more companies are combining online identity verification and automated AML screening during the account onboarding process.

KYC Factors for Enhanced Due Diligence

To make sure your enhanced due diligence process is on-point, you need to pay attention to a number of factors. 

These factors include:

  • Location of the business/individual.
  • Purpose of the business transactions. 
  • Occupation and nature of the business. 
  • The pattern of activity (transaction type, dollar volume, and frequency).
  • Expected origination of payments and method of payment. 
  • Document of incorporation, partnerships, and business certificates. 
  • Understanding the customer base. 
  • Ultimate Beneficial Owner Verification. 
  • Information about personal and business relationships. 
  • AML policies are set by the business in place. 
  • Third-party documentation. 
  • Reputation in the local market. 

There are some cases that demand EDD verification. In Europe, banks and financial institutions are required to conduct EDD for businesses operating in high-risk countries. 

The requirement also calls for EDD of Politically Exposed Persons. The new 6AMLD compliance has put additional pressure on financial institutions to conduct more vigorous verification. Negligence or non-compliance can lead to hefty fines. 

This pressure has only increased after sanctions on Russian Companies. Banks and financial institutions have to be extra careful about who they onboard. 

In April 2022, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency put additional light on the need for thorough EDD policies. These include:

  • Maintaining an accurate and complete list of sanctioned companies and high-risk counties. 
  • Evidence of transactions, which includes unexpected activities, and unexpected sources of funds. 
  • Complete analysis of available information. Including red flags in information and making a document of high-risk indicators and suspicious activities. 

Enhanced Due Diligence Checklist

So, what do banks and financial institutions get out of using EDD as part of their KYC verification process? Here’s the Enhanced due diligence checklist:

1. Better Serve Your Customers

The EDD and identity verification process offer a bunch of useful information regarding your customers, including employment status, age, and so on. This data can be used to provide customers with better services.

2. Enhance Brand Reputation

Whenever a bank, or financial institution onboards a new customer with EDD, they can help in the prevention of corrupt politicians, criminals, and terrorists from entering the ecosystem. This also means that taking precautions to know your customer at a more fundamental level.

Businesses need to build robust safeguards that help in defending against losses for fraud, non-compliance fines, and loss of brand reputation.

3. Financial Crime Prevention

All the ideas of knowing your customers, verifying identities, making sure they’re real, and cross-referencing customers from PEPs and Sanction lists. Enhanced due diligence and other fraud prevention methods such as bank account verification software allow businesses to focus on scaling their businesses instead.

4. Build Trust

Unfortunately, as more and more cases of data breaches, money laundering, and financial fraud are being uncovered, customers are losing trust in the banking sector. It is high time for banks, financial institutions, payment providers, and others to stop the flow of money laundering and other financial crimes. 

This can happen by integrating identity verification and identity screening technologies into the KYC workflow. With a secure digital-first approach, it is possible for banks to digitally onboard customers from all over the world. While ensuring security and enhancing a positive customer experience.

Measures for Enhanced Due Diligence

Let’s say there’s a client that needs EDD verification, what will you do? Instead of going through the process without proper knowledge, you can take some measures. A lot of financial institutions follow de-risking strategies, but that’s too much hassle for legit companies.

The FATF recommends following a risk-based approach for high-risk customers. In a risk-based approach, the amount of information required increases when the level of risk associated with the business increases. 

The risk-based approach offers several other advantages for financial institutions. Entities can scale it up or down based on the size and scale of the business. It is highly flexible and can adapt to changing conditions, technology, and other factors. 

According to FATF, financial institutions must follow some particular steps while conducting EDD, such as:

  • Institutions should try to gather as much information as possible about a customer. They should use this information to build an ideal risk assessment profile. 
  • Should conduct additional searches to get more information about individual customer risk assessment. 
  • Should build a thorough report on the customer or beneficial owner to better understand the level of risk involved. It is possible that the beneficial owner is part of criminal activities.
  • Institutions should build a number of questions that help them collect additional information about the customer. The questions should also try and uncover the intended nature of the business relationships.

Also, it’s not enough to run checks just once, EDD is an ongoing process. To make sure banks stay on top of all the risky activities, they need to keep track of high-risk customer activities. 

Requirements for Beneficial Owner EDD

To make sure that you’re covering all the bases, you need to verify the identity of the beneficial owner. Often, institutions forget or neglect the need to verify the beneficial owner. This can put them at greater risk of financial crime.

UBO verification is slowly becoming a vital part of EDD. If an account holder does some international transactions, institutions need to know the beneficial owners of the other account holder. This is to comply with the OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control). The OFAC requires banks to conduct due diligence of international accounts at the time of transaction. 

Due to the FCPA ACT, an institution has to identify the owner of all the third-party intermediaries. A company can’t comply with regulations properly until they thoroughly check the beneficial owner information. 

 The 4AMLD states that all the member states have to ensure that all the entities are incorporated within their territory according to national law. They need to collect all the vital information about the beneficial ownership alongside all the basic information about the entity itself. 

In the US, there are similar beneficial ownership disclosures that are a part of the FinCEN Customer Due Diligence Final Rule. As per the FinCEN Guidance FIN-2016-G003, “the CDD Rule outlines explicit customer due diligence requirements and imposes a new requirement for these financial institutions to identify and verify the identity of beneficial owners of legal entity customers, subject to certain exclusions and exemptions.”

The FATF did an analysis of the beneficial ownership best practices, and they concluded that the challenges with tracing UBO information while dealing with foreign ownership or directorships suggest the requirement for enhanced measures for these entities.

Procedure for Ultimate Beneficial Ownership Verification

Up until a couple of years ago, verifying beneficial ownership was a challenging and cumbersome process. It included a lot of manual work which led to mistakes. Business entities had to submit official documents to financial institutions.

Businesses that had to go through additional due diligence have to provide other documents based on their level of risk.

Some common examples include:

  • Official company documents from the official registry to verify information submitted by the account holders. 
  • UBO identification and verification.
  • Performing KYC checks on ultimate beneficial owners. 

With the help of DIRO’s ultimate beneficial ownership verification, financial institutions can now say goodbye to old manual methods.

DIRO can instantly verify incorporation documents with automated user consent in over 195 countries. It helps in eliminating fraud in merchant onboarding and complying with vendor due diligence rules. Moreover, banks can use it for UBO identity verification and cut down on the risk of UBO fraud. 

Conclusion – Growing Need for EDD

Changing regulations and policies are increasing the need for enhanced due diligence. As the scope and need for due diligence requirements are growing, the need for technologies that can handle these requirements is also growing. DIRO document verification and KYC verification solution can help institutions stay on top of these changing requirements with instant and accurate document verification.

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Crypto Regulations in Canada & U.S: Latest Updates and What You Should Know

crypto regulations of usa, canada & EU

The regulatory landscape for cryptocurrencies has been changing rapidly in the past few months. New regulations, along with old ones, have also come into force. In this article, we will be discussing the latest developments in the crypto regulations landscape in Canada and United States. The concerns around potential risks arising from investing in cryptocurrencies or token sales led to a tightening of the regulatory environment by several securities regulators in both the United States and Canada.

The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) published a notice on September 12 that outlines their views on how securities laws apply to businesses that deal in virtual currencies such as bitcoin and ether. And on September 25, the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that it will begin monitoring digital token sales to protect investors from risks involving unregistered securities.

Canada

Canada has been one of the most active jurisdictions in terms of regulating cryptocurrencies, digital tokens, and Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs). As early as 2013, the Canadian government published an analysis of the risks associated with cryptocurrencies. In the same year, Canada’s federal budget stated that the government will “develop options for the treatment of virtual currencies”.

In December 2017, the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) published a notice that explains how regulation of “securities offerings of investment contracts” applies to ICOs. The notice notes that “an investment contract exists when a person invests their money in a business and expects to earn a profit from the investment”. The CSA also clarified that an ICO falls under the definition of an ‘investment contract’. Therefore, the sale of cryptocurrencies or tokens cannot be done outside of the regulatory framework.

United States

The United States has also been proactive in regulating cryptocurrencies, digital tokens, and ICOs. However, there is a significant difference between the regulatory approaches taken by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). As far as cryptocurrencies are concerned, the SEC is of the view that they are securities and therefore, they are subject to the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The CFTC, on the other hand, believes that cryptocurrencies are commodities and are regulated by the Commodity Exchange Act of 1936.

Exchange-Traded Funds (ETF) Proposals

An ETF is a fund that owns the underlying assets (in this case cryptocurrencies) and divides ownership in the fund into shares. These shares are then listed and traded on a stock exchange. If an ETF has a good performance, it means that the value of the fund will increase and the shares will be worth more. A few exchanges have filed proposals to the SEC for the launch of ETFs that will invest in cryptocurrencies as well as tokens.

The Winklevoss twins, who are well known for their involvement in cryptocurrencies, have also applied for a Bitcoin ETF. Most of these proposals are still under consideration by the SEC. However, in August, the SEC rejected a proposal filed by the Winklevoss twins for a Bitcoin ETF. The SEC noted that the proposal was not consistent with the definition of ‘security’ as provided in the Securities Act of 1933 and the Exchange Act of 1934.

Crypto Regulations in the EU

The EU has been thinking about crypto the same way as other countries. According to a report, around 17% of Europeans have purchased Crypto. Most residents see crypto as a long-term investment. It’s not yet accepted as a payment method. 

There is some curiosity about the topic as a lot of people are interested in learning about payment methods.

As of right now, there are different crypto rules that every country has set for itself. In the 5AMLD regulations, crypto exchanges and crypto wallet providers are considered “obliged entities” and they’ll have to face the same rules as other financial institutions. 

While 5AMLD brought crypto exchanges under the scope of AML regulations, there’s not a single KYC rule across the EU. In 6AMLD, there will be a single guideline/rulebook for KYC all across the EU. 


Currently, the directive is making its way through the member states’ legislative processes, and it will take some time for complete implementation.

Regulation on Markets in Crypto Assets

In September 2020, the EU Commission proposed the regulation on markets in Crypto assets to provide some kind of legality around the treatment of crypto-assets. The end goal is to promote innovation, offer proper protection to consumers, and make sure that the financial market stays stable.

The EU Commission approved the regulation in March 2022, almost pushing it towards becoming a law. It is expected to become a law by 2024.

According to the commission, enabling full access to the internal market and providing legal certainty will lead to innovation. 

To minimize the risk of money laundering, the goals of MiCa include:

  • Managers and principal shareholders are perfect for purpose and have sufficient expertise in dealing with AML and Combating the Financing of Terrorism regulations. 
  • Robust internal control and risk assessment mechanisms, systems, and procedures are set in place to make sure the confidentiality of information is kept intact. 
  • Crypto assets service providers need to maintain records of all kinds of transactions, orders, and services related to crypto-assets that they offer.
  • Systems are set in place to detect potential market abuse committed by clients.

Consumers need to have a proper understanding of the EU and country-specific regulations for investments, banking, payments, and due diligence to understand MiCA.

Crypto Regulations for Germany

In Germany, 40 banks are already interested in offering crypto custody services after the latest AML laws. With EU-wide rules and an open market, there are some specific expansion opportunities.

Under the German Banking Act (KWG), licenses are required for crypto exchange platforms. BaFin is the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority is the authority that has issued guidance for managing crypto securities registers. 

In Germany, the identity requirements include:

  • First and Last Name
  • Place of birth
  • Date of birth
  • Nationality
  • Residential address

Crypto Regulations for France

Out of all the countries, the KYC rules in France have been hardened the most to include all Crypto transactions. This includes crypto-to-crypto transfers. The rules in France are harsher than in other jurisdictions. Holding anonymous accounts is prohibited and there are strict KYC obligations for every account. All crypto accounts have to undergo the identity verification process.

The ID verification for a crypto account in France includes:

In the coming couple of years, Europe’s crypto landscape will change dramatically. Especially after MiCA and other regulations become effective.

New Regulations for Exchanges and ICOs

There have been changes in regulations governing exchanges, which are the platforms on which cryptocurrencies are traded. Most of these exchanges have been registered as trading facilities or alternative trading systems (ATS) under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. A trading facility is an entity that regularly facilitates the purchase or sale of securities or commodities, while an alternative trading system is an entity that facilitates the trade of securities or commodities in a manner that does not trigger a regulatory requirement.

In Canada, exchanges must now register as trading or commodity boards. In the U.S., exchanges must register with the CFTC as commodity trading advisors (CTAs) or derivatives clearing organizations (DCOs). Similarly, the SEC has proposed regulations for ICOs. These regulations would require ICOs to register with the SEC as an investment of securities.

Conclusion

The regulatory landscape for cryptocurrencies has been changing rapidly in the past few months. New regulations, along with old ones, have also come into force. In this article, we will be discussing the latest developments in the cryptocurrency regulations landscape in Canada and United States. The concerns around potential risks arising from investing in cryptocurrencies or token sales led to a tightening of the regulatory environment by several securities regulators in both the United States and Canada.

The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) published a notice on September 12 that outlines their views on how securities laws apply to businesses that deal in virtual currencies such as bitcoin and ether. And on September 25, the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that they will begin monitoring digital token sales to protect investors from risks involving unregistered securities.

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Machine Learning Technology for Detecting Fraud: How to Leverage Technologies?

machine learning technology

In the last couple of years, the number of fraudulent services available in the market has increased. It has become essential for banks and financial institutions to employ machine learning technology that can help in fraud prevention.

While protecting customers by detecting fraud is a huge challenge, it should always be kept high on the agenda. But you do need to keep in mind that finding the balance between fraud prevention and customer experience is crucial for businesses. 

With the emergence of endless data sources, ready to be accessed at any given time. With greater control and accuracy over the data available, it opens banks up to new opportunities to detect fraudulent activities. Such as using machine learning technologies for fraud prevention.

Across the data landscape, we can see how the industry is slowly changing and allowing for better and more accurate results. Be it customer verification, customer validation, onboarding, decision making, or anything else. Machine learning for fraud detection is a great solution.

As many organizations have adopted traditional rule-based strategies, they need a lot of effort to manage. And with the increasing data points for better accuracy, the process becomes too large for humans. With the growth of digital traffic and the increasing need of identifying customers, institutions need better fraud prevention solutions. This includes the best machine learning algorithms for fraud detection.

Why Use Machine Learning for Fraud Detection?

With the ever-growing number of fraud services available in the market, it’s crucial to have a clear view of the fraud risk. With machine learning fraud detection, bank can understand their customer data better. 

As more and more consumers need instant decisioning, and process fulfillment. The need for faster and more accurate fraud checks has to be included in the customer journey. When making online decisions where customer journeys will be affected, it’s even more important that only these activities with a real risk of being fraudulent are being prevented.

At the same time, it’s also important to impact the experience of customers by subjecting them to unnecessary delays while doing customer verification. Additionally. There’s a limit to the effectiveness of the rule-based referral strategy as it requires a lot of effort to manage the number of permutations. 

Adopting machine learning technologies can help organizations build a smooth customer journey. This can be done while flagging potential fraudulent attempts which can impact the bottom line.

Common Machine Learning Misconception

1. Machine Learning is New

Machine learning technologies have been used for over 20 years across multiple industries. The technology has been helping businesses in making smarter decisions, streamlining processes and so much more. 

2. Machine Learning is Self-Learning

Machine learning models for fraud detection can keep evolving based on the recent problems they’ve solved. Within the identity and fraud department, it isn’t suitable to deploy auto-learning models as it makes governance easier. Model performance is continually monitored and seen where it has degraded. Replacement models will only be deployed with visibility of the differences between the current and the older models.

3. Supervised and Unsupervised Models

Supervised models don’t necessarily mean that there’s human involvement in every step. Even the supervised models operate according to the data fed to them.

Who Can Use Machine Learning Software?

While a lot of businesses already leverage machine learning technologies to complete specific processes. Implementing better automation in the fraud detection process is still an unseen phenomenon. However, increasing amounts of data sets can improve the ID verification process.

The use of ML is becoming more crucial for several businesses. Machine learning solutions can understand complicated relations between data sets within a business. 

Although access to machine learning for fraud detection has been limited, especially when it comes to fraud management. Traditionally, machine learning is often available only to bigger organizations, now even small-scale businesses are getting access to machine learning software.

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Benefits of Open Banking for Consumers

open banking service

Things have changed in how people handle their finances. This is because of the recent wave of modernization in banking. FinTech innovations are changing the way consumers think about their finances. The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated digital banking transactions. The shifting reality of how finances are managed is growing. Bank branches and paper checks are second options to a lot of consumers. Eight in 10 Americans are linking their bank accounts digitally and using these services to automate their banking processes.

The sudden change in consumer expectations is met with robust technologies. With every leap in speed, security, and ease of use, open banking services have revolutionized banking. When it comes to personal finances, people want real data whenever they want to.

Here are some benefits of open banking services.

Benefits of Using Open Banking Services

1. Saving More Time

Probably the biggest benefit of open banking services is that it helps in saving time. Most people prefer using online banking services instead of cash, or credit and debit cards. With the widespread adoption of P2P payment apps, these antiqued processes are quickly becoming a thing of the past.

In real-time, payments can be split between friends with a few taps on the mobile screen. Digital wallets allow busy shoppers allow someone who wants to shop quickly without having to wait for card payments.

Encrypted credit card info auto-populates, saving time and reducing errors when shopping online.

2. Saving Money

65% of Americans don’t know how much money they’ve spent last month. Most people don’t know how to save money and online shopping has forced consumers to spend more. So much emphasis is placed on new and better ways to spend that saving has become just an afterthought.

AI and machine-learning engines do the heavy lifting of savings calculation, set goals, and projection, raising the level of users’ financial literacy. 42% of Americans surveyed that they wanted help saving their money, and trust technology to offer them the financial advantage they need.

Open banking technology powers some of the most effective FinTech apps for saving money.

3. Improvement of Financial Health

Open banking and AI are changing the world. Anyone can download a financial management app, provide permission to access their banking information, and be guided easily through opening accounts, investment suggestions, and loan applications. 

FinTech AI systems offer massive amounts of data in milliseconds. App and service developers can leverage this power to analyze a consumer’s subscription payments. Machine learning and AI can use this real-time data to offer smart financial planning and brilliant investment options. 

As a result, financial decision-making can improve their services dramatically. Consumers are seeing the positive results of adoption in their bank balances.

4. Automation

Another great reason for using online banking services is that it allows for a greater level of anticipation. Repetitive, time-consuming financial tasks can be automated to reduce the time-consuming process. Open banking offers easy setup and maintenance of connections to financial institutions and offers consumers to set a variety of monthly payments.

5. Better View of Finances

Consumers of today don’t want to maintain financial records on a series of lost papers, stuffed in a drawer. Open banking data has spawned a wealth of apps and services that provide consumers and small businesses a real-time overview of their finances. 

Open banking can sync across multiple accounts and across financial institutions to provide consumers with a complete overview of their finances. The expectation is that individuals should be able to see where their money is going, anytime they want.