Cambridge Blockchain And IHS Markit Team Up To Tackle KYC

Cambridge Blockchain has announced a partnership with IHS Markit to form an identity data alliance that will improve the collection and management of know-your-customer (KYC) information.

The strategic alliance between IHS Markit’s kyc.com services and Cambridge Blockchain’s distributed digital identity system will enable large banks to handle the complex KYC issues of both transparency and privacy, which can cost more than $500 million annually.

In fact, in a recent interview with PYMNTS, Anatoly Kvitnitsky, vice president of growth at Trulioo, said that KYC can pose a challenge for financial firms when onboarding customers, particularly when the customer is a corporate entity that wants to open an account and open the door to accepting payments.

The partnership between IHS Markit and Cambridge Blockchain will result in faster customer onboarding, lower costs and enhanced compliance through a single, trusted and consistent view of customer reference data, according to the press release.

Launched in 2014, kyc.com is able to regulate KYC processes and centralize operations around client onboarding and account management for 17 global banks and over 140,000 registered legal entities.

“The creation of utilities and other consortia to help financial institutions address the challenges of KYC has great potential [to] improve standards and practices,” said Guy Harrison, managing director and head of KYC Services at IHS Markit. “However, for firms to operate efficiently on a global scale, identity data need to be highly portable. With this in mind, we are pleased to work with Cambridge Blockchain to apply the benefits of distributed ledger technology to a robust KYC data collection, validation and management process.”

For its part, Cambridge Blockchain’s software will offer secure data sharing and a platform to connect multiple identity validators.

“IHS Markit’s existing strengths in bilateral and centralized KYC data sharing make the company an ideal partner to offer new distributed digital identity systems,” remarked Matthew Commons, CEO of Cambridge Blockchain. “We look forward to continuing our [collaboration] with IHS Markit to give financial institutions confidence that their KYC, AML, tax, legal, MiFID, EMIR and other regulatory information is complete, accurate and up to date.”