A new approach to KYB, keeping compliance simple

By Liam Chennells, CEO and founder of Detected

Know Your Business (KYB) is one of the most important elements of any due diligence process. If you don’t have a clear idea of who you’re dealing with, you’re not only potentially putting yourself on the wrong side of legal requirements, but also starting a business relationship on the basis of possibly inaccurate information.

Despite its importance, the problem with traditional KYB processes and platforms is that everything is incredibly fragmented. The relevant data comes from all sorts of different sources. So without appropriate technology in place to ensure both quality and simplicity, navigating KYB checks can be incredibly challenging.

Detected changes that. The world’s first truly end-to-end KYB solution, it’s a white-labelled, automated onboarding workflow that collects the KYB data businesses need, thanks to integration with an expansive network that connects previously fragmented information.

Transforming the KYB verification process

Whilst sourcing logistics to transport medical equipment in early 2020, I was frustrated by the amount of people using the crisis for individual gain, and wanted to create a robust solution for verifying business suppliers globally.

Detected is the only platform that automatically captures all the relevant and required KYB data in a single easy workflow. It differs from other forms of KYB by eliminating the need for organisations to work with different providers who each specialise in just one particular area. This approach instantly addresses some of the biggest KYB pain points, starting with data quality. As long as international company data comes from a range of different sources, it will never be available at a consistent level. And while it’s never possible to ensure total quality across every single data point, gathering information through one cohesive platform makes it that much easier to reach for higher standards.

As a result of the fragmentation within most forms of KYB, onboarding for companies and their clients has traditionally been slow, complex, and expensive. Our onboarding process, on the other hand, is fast, streamlined, and user-friendly – offering a more efficient alternative that can be rolled out at scale, and ultimately leads to a faster time to revenue.

Finally, KYB has often been just as difficult to manage on an ongoing basis as it’s been to set up. Detected’s all-in-one KYB dashboard was designed to fix that – making it easy to search for customer profiles, monitor changes in risk level, and set tailored status tags to support various internal processes.

All of these innovations make Detected a complete solution, addressing the broken parts of KYB to create something fit-for-purpose and up-to-date with global regulations.

The benefits of simplified KYB

In addition to that all-important faster time to revenue, Detected also lowers the cost and increases the financial effectiveness of KYB verification.

Rather than having to engage with multiple different providers, our platform operates as a single subscription that provides access to a broad range of global data sources. That allows organisations to reduce their KYB overheads and condense their spend into a single platform, without having to make any sacrifices in terms of the KYB data they collect.

Just as importantly, the simplicity on the other side of the coin for businesses makes it far less likely that they’ll become frustrated and decide to drop out of the KYB process. Detected’s engaging user experience, region-specific flows, and automatic language detection mean onboarding is never over complicated and follows a simplified, clear set of steps – reducing customer churn and protecting revenue while still ensuring a verified identity.

Creating the world’s most comprehensive business profiles

Detected’s user-friendly features and industry-beating approach to simplifying KYB are only as good as the business profiles the platform ultimately creates.

For any KYB process to deliver value, it needs to ensure compliance with the relevant regulations and laws in an organisation’s country. Detected does this by creating the world’s most comprehensive business profiles, which includes company information, finance and credit data, director checks, ultimate beneficial ownership (UBO), ID verification and more.

In addition to completing these different checks, we also undergo third-party SOC 2 auditing, which guarantees the safety of data flowing through the platform. This is an essential layer of security that ensures organisations using Detected are compliant with global data protection regulations.

It sounds like a lot, and it is. But the hard work happens behind the scenes, with the user experience staying simple throughout. The result is incredibly comprehensive KYB – giving confidence that compliance is assured and that risks are avoided.

Impact in action

For an example of Detected’s impact in action, look no further than the results we helped a global shipping company achieve. With operations all over the world, the business’s procurement team was struggling to get a complete picture of their vendors and suppliers, leading to an increased exposure to reputational risk. Before we got involved, the only option available was hiring more staff to handle onboarding. But with Detected, the business was immediately able to onboard all of its vendors and suppliers through a single link, with no gaps in the data gathered.

This provided an instantly superior source of risk data, and avoided the need for additional staff to be hired, freeing up finances for other, business-critical roles. At the same time, it reduced the amount of time that the existing team needed to spend reviewing data, thanks to our ongoing monitoring that sends alerts whenever screening data changes.

This kind of simplicity is what Detected was founded to deliver. We’re incredibly proud of the results we’ve achieved so far. And as the technology behind our platform continues to evolve, we’re excited to keep innovating and making KYB easier, faster, more efficient, and more effective.