Reinvented KYC Infrastructure for Fund Distribution to Cut Costs by up to 70%

A new Know Your Customer (KYC) solution to support fund distribution is expected soon. Fundsquare leads the works.

LUXEMBOURG--(BUSINESS WIRE)--KYC, a process of verifying the identity of investors, is mandatory in the financial sector and costs an estimated EUR 180 million annually only for the Luxembourg fund industry¹. However, if the process was pooled, instead of the current client-by-client replication, the spending could be lowered by 70%, down to EUR 20 million. A working group comprising 22 of Europe’s leading asset managers and asset servicing providers is already working on a solution optimising how the KYC obligations in fund distribution could be addressed.

Fundsquare, a market infrastructure dedicated to investment funds, initiated the industry dialogue. “We inquired different players in the sector – management companies and asset servicing providers – about their KYC needs. In the next step we listed the requirements of a solution which would efficiently support the distribution of funds,” explains Olivier Portenseigne, Managing Director and CCO of Fundsquare. “The resulting working group is now finalising the specifications for a KYC infrastructure which will address the real needs of the market,” he adds.

Since May 2016, the working group, comprising companies from UK, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg and Switzerland, met several times at Fundsquare’s HQ in Luxembourg. Its objective is to define the modus operandi to meet all KYC requirements raised by the different market players.

The KYC solution will initially focus on institutional and retail funds distributed on a cross-border basis and will then extend to other domestic markets.

The working group will meet again in the next coming months to define the investment plan for the realisation of the infrastructure. It should be operational before the end of 2017.

About Fundsquare

Fundsquare S.A. was incorporated in June 2013 at the initiative of the Luxembourg Stock Exchange in order to establish an international market infrastructure capable of offering services relating to the cross-border distribution of funds in a standardised, automated manner. The main objective of the Fundsquare platform is to foster relationships and communication between professional investors and the funds.

¹ Deloitte, https://goo.gl/uqH8Zs