Deadline is here for compliance with revised JMLSG Guidelines on customer ID verification

Financial services organisations must now make sure their customer identity verification procedures follow revised JMLSG guidelines, warns credit reference agency Callcredit.

The revised guidelines on how to comply with UK money laundering regulations were approved by the Treasury on 13th February but firms were given a six months transition period to review and modify their procedures.

Melanie Mitchley, Callcredit's director of industry relationships said:

"The guidance notes support a risk-based approach to ID verification and have put more responsibility on senior management to implement verification procedures that are appropriate to their business.

They are not prescriptive but one of the overriding requirements is to have a fully documented verification system, one that confirms exactly what checks have been made, whether document-based, electronic or a combination of the two, and what the results were. This is fundamental. After August 13th, the FSA, will be able to impose hefty fines on firms that do not have a fully auditable verification system in place."

Since publication of the revised JMLSG guidelines Callcredit has seen a surge in sales of its electronic verification solution CallML.

Melanie explains:

"The JMLSG has acknowledged the benefits of electronic verification in many circumstances and has listed criteria for the type of agency that should be selected. Callcredit fully complies with all the requirements of the guidelines. CallML uses a range of positive information sources covering a period of at least six years that can be used to link an applicant to both current and previous circumstances. It also uses several negative information sources, such as databases relating to identity fraud and deceased persons.

CallML reports tell users exactly what checks were carried out, what the results of the checks were, and what they mean in terms of how much certainty they give as to the identity of the subject.

If organisations are using an EV solution that doesn't do all this, they need to double check that it complies with the revised JMLSG guidelines."

For more information about CallML call the CallML sales team on 0113 244 1555.