With 2-5% of GDP laundered worldwide, Anti-Money Laundering (AML) checks protect the global financial system and are an essential part of doing business responsibly. Whether you work in finance, real estate, legal services, or any other regulated industry, understanding the AML process and how long it takes will help you streamline your client onboarding.
Read on for our guide to how long AML checks take and how to speed up the process.
What Is an Anti-Money Laundering Check?
Financial institutions and regulated businesses conduct AML checks to detect and prevent the laundering of illegally obtained money. Criminals will use money laundering as a way to disguise illicit funds as legitimate income entering the financial system.
Particularly in the UK, the size of our financial and professional services sectors make us attractive to money launderers. This makes AML essential to spot suspicious activities early on, protecting your business and the wider community from financial crime.
How Long Do AML Checks Take?
When you perform an AML check, the time it takes can vary depending on how complex each individual case is. Usually, a straightforward AML check can be done in minutes using advanced verification technology.
Sometimes you may need to take more time, especially where a case needs deeper financial analysis or involves a higher-risk individual such as a politically exposed person (PEP). In these situations, AML checks can take anything from a few hours to several days.
At Credas, we can help you meet your anti-money laundering obligations with real-time AML checks using cutting-edge facial recognition. Book a demo to go through the AML check process with our experts.
Understanding the Process of Anti-Money Laundering
To help you understand AML checks, it’s important to know the steps they cover to detect financial crime. These include:
- Identity verification to make sure an individual is who they claim to be.
- Customer screening, checking global watchlists, sanctions and databases to make sure your client isn’t considered high-risk or flagged as a PEP.
- Financial due diligence to confirm the legitimacy and source of funds.
- A risk assessment to determine the overall risk associated with a client, giving you an opportunity to implement any AML measures needed and mitigate risks.
Factors That Can Slow Down AML Checks
Whether it’s an accounting client or a buyer for a property or piece of art, you’ll likely want to make the AML process as quick and simple as you can for them. That’s why it’s worth being aware of the factors that can slow down your AML checks, for example:
- Sending in incomplete or inaccurate documents.
- Your client having a complicated or unclear financial history that you’ll need to investigate, potentially involving high-value transitions or multiple bank accounts.
- Clients with high-risk profiles such as PEPs or those on international watchlists, who will need further levels of screening and verification. Here are some more AML risk factors to consider.
- Manual processes such as these three AML practices that could be slowing you down.
How to Speed Up the AML Process
As we’ve covered, AML checks can take anything from a few minutes to several days and some of the factors that can slow the process down are in your control. Here are three key areas we recommend improving to speed up your business’ AML process:
1. Set Clear Expectations With Your Clients
When you’re ready to perform an AML check with your client, it’s important to clearly communicate to your clients what documents and information you need. As they’ll likely want the process to go quickly too, you can highlight to them how providing accurate and complete information from the outset will help to speed up their checks.
2. Staff Training
Having a team that’s trained in AML will give them the tools they need to handle your checks quickly and correctly. Here are some essential AML resources to increase your compliance.
By scheduling regular training, you can ensure your colleagues are aware of current regulations and understand the nuances of identity verification, customer screening and risk assessment. This will not only improve the speed of your AML checks, but also support your team in handling complex situations as and when they come up.
3. Leveraging Technology
Lastly, technology can be pivotal in speeding up your AML checks. For example, online AML software can save you hours of paperwork, allowing you to perform AML checks in real-time.
Using advanced facial recognition and document authentication technology not only helps you save time; it also helps reduce the potential for human error and gives you a clear audit trail to show compliance. You’ll also benefit from a simple and smart AML platform that provides a better experience for your customers and your team.
How We Can Help
So, how long does an AML check take? We hope this guide has helped you understand how AML checks can both be incredibly fast or slow depending on the situation, and the steps you can take to speed up the process for your organisation.
To learn more about AML, read our AML compliance articles including AML for estate agents and a guide to compliance for law firms.
When you’re ready to upgrade your AML checks, we can support with advanced anti-money laundering technology that checks your documents in real time and offers an easy-to-use platform for your customers. Contact us to schedule a demo for your organisation.
