Banks are requesting more know-your-customer (KYC) documents than ever before according to Thomson Reuters, which is positioning itself through organic growth and acquisitions to be a major player in the KYC market.

The media and information giant says that prospective clients may have to submit between 5 and 100 documents during the onboarding process, and is keen to participate in the development and provision of a common standard for KYC management.

Common standard

According to Thomson Reuters, corporates are caught up in bank demands for KYC documentation and banks lack a common standard, so corporate treasurers can be faced with frequent and inconsistent KYC document requests from their banking group.

Thomson Reuters, which brought its first KYC managed service, Org ID, to serve this market three years ago. Today, it serves 23 large financial institutions worldwide with over 200,000 KYC records published to date.

Acquisitions

The media and information giant is also on the acquisition trail. Already this year, it has signed definitive agreements to acquire Clarient Global and Avox Limited.

Clarient is an established KYC and client reference data platform owned and used by the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC), Barclays, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, J P Morgan, BNY Mellon, and State Street, among others.

Avox is a supplier of legal entity data, hierarchies and identifiers on financial entities globally, and is owned by the DTCC.