You've been approaching EDD reviews all wrong. Here's why.
I’m a BSA nerd. I love everything about anti-money laundering. Well, almost everything. If I’m being honest, historically one of my most loathed duties as a BSA Officer was enhanced due diligence reviews (EDD) on my higher risk customers. What. A. Pain. Can I get an amen from my fellow BSA professionals? Well guess what friends - I’m about to rock your world and show you how your EDD review cycle is going to move from
THIS:
TO THIS.
To really understand why what I’m about to show you is such a breath of fresh air to the EDD review world, you have to understand the root cause of why historically EDD reviews have been such a pain. EDD reviews fundamentally should consist of:
A transactional review for a specified look-back period to review for any unusual activity that is not commensurate with the customer or member’s stated anticipated activity or business type
A review of the customer or member information, including any supporting documentation around the business account activity and operations that may include updated licensing information, updated beneficial ownership information, testing results if you’re banking hemp/CBD, annual AML audit results, latest AML training docs if you’re dealing with MSBs, and so on and so forth.
Out of the two bullet points above, you can likely guess which one slows down the entire EDD review process. If you guessed a “review of customer information”, you’re correct.
Let’s face it guys. Traditional collection of updated information from customers or members after they have been onboarded has always been historically difficult. Why? Because we have been relying on outdated ways to collect that updated customer or member information for decades. The traditional way hasn’t worked for a long time for many reasons including:
Perhaps we’ve set the wrong expectations with our customers or members at onboarding on providing updated information on their business operations on a recurring basis
Maybe as a BSA back-office function we are required to rely on the customer or member’s relationship manager to request the information and they do not understand the urgency or importance of the documentation/information requested or are busy with their traditional 9-5 duties to assist in a timely manner
Or maybe it’s the customer or member that doesn’t have an easy way of providing the requested information back to the financial institution
Regardless of the reason, if you’re a BSA professional - you know what I’m talking about. There were days I wanted to pull my hair out trying to wrap up an EDD review but the only thing holding me up was all of this critical information I needed from my customer to take the EDD review over the finish line.
Now here’s where I reveal the secret sauce to solving your EDD review woes. It’s simple really - three words to be exact - AUTOMATED INFORMATION COLLECTION. That’s right - we’re going to help you get that necessary information from your customer or member in a way that’s going to allow you to sing like Julie Andrews in the Sound of Music and get your EDD review completed ON TIME.
How do we do that? At RiskScout, we designed CheckPoints, one of my favorite tools that exists in our platform. A CheckPoint is an automated recurring request to help take the hassle out of collecting updated customer or member information. We help you customize the questions for the information you’d like to receive or re-confirm and PRESTO - the information request is sent to the customer or member to easily complete through the RiskScout website on their phone, tablet or desktop. CheckPoints are typically scheduled 6-8 weeks in advance of your scheduled EDD review, giving the customer or member ample time to complete the requested information.
We’ve made it so easy for the customer or member to complete the requested information through CheckPoints, we have a 98% success rate on business members completing the requested information in 48 hours or less.
Want to learn more and see a sneak peek into our CheckPoints magic? Check out the video below and contact us to learn more!