By Legal Futures’ Associate Lawyer Checker
Webinar: Source of Funds – let technology remove the risk
Date: 21st January
Time: 2pm
Technology advances regardless of which sector people work in. It’s true that some sectors move a lot quicker than others and embrace technology but will 2020 be the year that the legal sector begins to open its mind to what’s out there.
On January 10th 2020, the Fifth Money Laundering Directive (5AMLD) came into force, and is set to tackle the head on issue of money laundering – which is costing the UK economy £37billion every year.
Electronic verification is given a regulatory endorsement in 5AMLD.
In the words of the Directive: “Accurate identification and verification of data of natural and legal persons are essential for fighting money laundering or terrorist financing. The latest technical developments in the digitalisation of transactions and payments enable a secure remote or electronic identification”, which acknowledges the success of the framework of aspirations laid out five years ago in (EU) 910/2014.
With the regulators beginning to increase their scrutiny, firms can expect to face harsher penalties for non-compliance. This scrutiny could be one of the reasons digital onboarding will slowly become the norm for law firms in 2020.
But what are the advantages of digital onboarding?
There a numerous benefits of digital onboarding, some of these include:
- Provides the customer with a much better journey, managing their expectations along the way
- It enables clients to provide their source of ID at a time that is convenient to them, and send it to the firm safely, without having the hassle of arranging an appointment to come in and physically complete the document check
- It enables the firm to have the peace of mind that the ID provided by the client is genuine, as the ID can be checked by various sources. This frees up employee time, enabling them to focus on other areas (such as fee earning and compliance)
- It gives the law firm a competitive advantage. Many clients want the process to be as easy as possible. Being able to provide their ID any time of the day or week makes a firm seem a lot more accessible than one that sticks with a paper-based system
Digital onboarding offers everything the modern consumer demands. However, the reason digital onboarding hasn’t become the norm already is due to the fact that no regulatory body states that client onboarding needs to be done this way.
Remaining compliant is one of the foremost issues a firm thinks about, and as a result firms tend to follow guidance to the letter. However, with the introduction of 5AMLD, which alludes to digital onboarding, firms may seem more open to the idea.
Lawyer Checker has partnered with electronic ID checker Thirdfort, which is one of the tools currently on the market to help firms embrace the digital onboarding process.
Using Thirdfort enables firms to onboard clients 80% quicker than using traditional paper-based methods (which can often take 2-3 weeks). The application is secure reducing the need for paper and email and sets out clearly what the client can expect to happen.
Webinar: Source of Funds – let technology remove the risk
If you’d like more information about Thirdfort contact Lawyer Checker on 0800 133 7127 or email: support@lawyerchecker.co.uk and one of our team will happily arrange a demonstration for you.
