Are your Enhanced Due Diligence (EDD) protocols up to the task of mitigating risk in an increasingly digital world? With Interpol’s new Global Crime Trend report strongly indicating that money laundering, phishing, and online scams pose a significant risk to businesses and financial institutions, as well as suggesting that fincrime is expected to drastically increase in the coming years, the importance of investing in your EDD processes is more significant than ever.

At iComply, we’re proud to partner with businesses and institutions across North America and Europe to offer comprehensive KYC and EDD solutions you can trust. Backed by powerful technologies like biometrics and edge computing, iComplyKYC gives you access to a robust suite of KYC products that make Customer Due Diligence (CDD) and EDD straightforward, saving you time and money while streamlining your operations.

Below, we’ll take a quick refresher look at some of the basics of Enhanced Due Diligence, why it matters, and the benefits of partnering with iComply for your compliance needs.

What is Enhance Due Diligence?

As the name suggests, EDD refers to a more in-depth level of customer investigation and identity verification conducted during onboarding, as well as on a necessary basis in response to changing risk profiles, world events, a change in known associations, and more. Enhanced Due Diligence serves as an extra layer of protection by enacting increased scrutiny to garner details not typically found using conventional CDD methods.

EDD procedures are more robust than standard CDD assessments and provide highly detailed reporting that can be reviewed on a routine basis for high-risk clients, reporting that can be used to prove “reasonable measures” have been taken to adequately conduct threat assessments.

Why EDD Matters

The value of Enhanced Due Diligence expands well beyond simply staying compliant with KYC and AML protocols. EDD plays a vital role in helping to safeguard the global market against the very real, pervasive threats posed by financial crime, fraud, and other related activities. When implemented properly and routinely reviewed, EDD protocols allow countries and global legislators to strengthen their efforts against humanitarian atrocities like human trafficking, forced labour, terrorist funding, and more.

Simply put, EDD is about more than checking a box to avoid fines; it helps protect vulnerable people against exploitation and threats that would otherwise go unseen.

Spotlight On: earn more about the importance of AML legislation in combatting human trafficking here.

When is Enhanced Due Diligence Necessary?

While Customer Due Diligence (CDD) is considered a standard practice under KYC protocols, EDD may be reserved for higher-risk cases or circumstances where enhanced information is necessary to move forward safely. Key examples that would warrant the need for EDD to be conducted include:

• When dealing with businesses or third-party entities on the High-Risk Third Countries list
• Interactions involving companies in sectors with an increased risk for money laundering including gambling, securities, and industries specializing in the transfer of virtual assets
• Interactions with PEPs or PEP-adjacent individuals (e.g. family members, friends, colleagues, etc.)
• Deals involving Shell corporations
• Private and correspondent banking entity deals
• Interactions with companies that have any known ties to funding terrorist activities or that have been blacklisted

When conducting EDD, organizations must ensure that highly detailed documentation is readily accessible, and that routine reviews are conducted to adequately and continuously assess risk. Failure to comply with either of these measures may result in fines and can expose your business, as well as your customers, to the risks associated with fincrime and other non-ideal circumstances.

Transparency Made Simple

At iComply, we believe that staying compliant with AML and KYC standards, including EDD processes, should be simple. Our world-leading, modular suite of KYC products makes it easy to compile and respond to key customer data, navigate changing legislation, and reduce the cost of fincrime compliance by automating up to 80% of your KYC protocols. iComplyKYC is designed to seamlessly integrate with your existing security framework within a matter of minutes and gives you access to compliance measures in nearly 250 jurisdictions across the globe.

When you need information you can trust and KYC processes designed to tackle the market with ease, iComplyKYC has you covered.

Book a demo with our team today to learn more.

learn more

Is your AML compliance too expensive, time-consuming, or ineffective?

iComply enables financial services providers to reduce costs, risk, and complexity and improve staff capacity, effectiveness, and customer experience.

Request a demo today.