Bisnode offers the broadest and most comprehensive data coverage in the Nordics and through its partnership with Dun & Bradstreet offers access to the D&B Data Cloud, comprised of over 300 million business records and 100 million associated contacts across the globe. Altogether, Bisnode has access to 2,000 official data sources and counts the major Nordic banks among its 130,000 customers.

This announcement comes as banks and other financial institutions in the region seek to strengthen their defenses by raising AML and KYC compliance standards across the whole industry also in the light of a recent series of high-profile money laundering cases.

Both encompass and Bisnode have extensive experience of working with KYC managed service providers and Utilities and have a solid understanding of how to align the various AML/KYC needs of multiple stakeholders to develop effective solutions that drive value and improve compliance.

The two companies will collaborate to develop solutions that specifically address the needs of Nordic banks and financial institutions, enabling them to:

• Reduce the spiraling costs of customer onboarding and lifecycle management
• Speed up and enhance the onboarding experience for customers
• Improve compliance standards and ensure demonstrable compliance at all times by improving transparency of the process and ensuring auditability 
• Improve the value of the data they rely on when onboarding and maintaining relationships with customers

Wayne Johnson, CEO and Co-founder at encompass corporation, said: “The regulatory environment in the Nordic region is under more scrutiny than ever before, and with this comes the need for tighter, more effective KYC controls. Both encompass and Bisnode actively invest in innovation to ensure our products and services remain at the cutting edge of the industry, so that we can help customers to continuously upgrade and streamline their compliance processes.”

Bisnode CEO Magnus Silfverberg also commented: “This partnership with encompass is a natural fit for us, since the highest quality data is absolutely key to effective KYC. The integration of our data and analytics into encompass’ best-of-breed automation platform will enable regulated firms in the region to establish KYC best practice within the growing regulatory framework.”