Kyc.com, the joint venture between Markit Ltd. (Nasdaq: MRKT) and Genpact Limited (NYSE: G) today announced the expansion of its service to Hong Kong and Singapore. This roll out is in addition to jurisdictional coverage in the US, UK and Australia which launched in 2014.

Standard Chartered, the UK headquartered bank with a large footprint in Asia, is supportive of kyc.com and in the process of joining the service. In addition, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Morgan Stanley and UBS are already signed up and will be using the service to support their due diligence in the region. Over 1,500 buyside firms and corporations, representing 37,000 legal entities are also using kyc.com to simplify the provision of know your customer (KYC) and other documentation to their banks.

Kyc.com is a centralised service enabling investment managers, corporates and banks to streamline the KYC process by collecting the required documentation and data once, to create a reusable profile. With over 169,000 entities and 350,000 documents across kyc.comand Markit’s Counterparty Manager, customers benefit from validated information to determine beneficial ownership.

Commenting on the exciting developments around the uptake of the service, David Deane, managing director of client and data services at Deutsche Bank said, "We actively support the use of KYC utilities and have been investing in the development of thekyc.com service as a founding design partner since its inception. Now that the service has been developed, we want to encourage market adoption. Deutsche Bank is inviting customers to subscribe to this service and contribute their KYC documentation and data to kyc.com".

“HSBC is committed to a consistent, comprehensive approach to financial crime risk assessment and regulatory compliance, and that requires a robust KYC process,” said Greg Watson, global head of banking middle office at HSBC. “Using kyc.com improves the client experience while standardising and simplifying data gathering and validation.”

A recent survey commissioned by kyc.com revealed that 63% of financial institutions across Asia believe varying KYC standards across the region is the biggest factor impacting their level of regulatory risk. When conducting due diligence checks on customers, 58% surveyed have either terminated existing customers or refused new customers given due diligence concerns.

“One of the biggest challenges to conducting KYC in Asia is the regional variation for cross border compliance, which adds a layer of complexity to managing our customer relationships,” said David Fleet, managing director of client onboarding and management, Standard Chartered. “For us it’s about establishing best practice and mutualising efforts to remove some of the regional anomalies. Kyc.com supports this and provides a more cost effective way to conduct our business.”

“As design partner of kyc.com, we welcome and support Markit and Genpact on this development. At UBS, we actively encourage the adoption of KYC utilities to drive industry simplification; and improve the delivery of services to our clients," said Daniel Haid, managing director of client onboarding, UBS. "Current practices are complex and time consuming. Gathering client information in a single place benefits both clients and financial institutions."

“We are seeing a coming together of standards for connected due diligence processes, whether it’s client onboarding or meeting tax requirements,” said Jon May, chief executive officer, of kyc.com. “This roll out coupled with our support for Australia in this region increases efficiency, utilises repeatable KYC processes and enables our customers to focus on other higher value areas such as innovation to strengthen their competitiveness and compliance in the financial sector.”