Complexity Crisis: New Detected Study Reveals KYB Needs a Tech Upgrade

AML and KYC
01.07.2024 01:00 pm

Detected, a fintech reinventing how companies think about business onboarding, has released a new study highlighting the key challenges and future trends in the Know Your Business (KYB) sector. The findings reveal that the most common problem with KYB is the complexity of the process and AI and automation are set to transform business operations by 2027.

The study commissioned by Censuswide for Detected identified that the most common problem (22%) businesses face during business onboarding is the complexity of the process. This complexity is based on persistent data inaccuracies, regardless of company size, but particularly for companies with fewer than 50 employees. See below the five biggest reasons for respondents when asked about the biggest challenges they faced in their KYB process:

Complex processes (22%)
Complicated and clunky UX (18%)
Data Incompleteness/Inaccuracy (18%)
Internal Process/Ownership (15%)
Too many questions you don’t have answers to on the spot (13%)

KYB (Know Your Business process) is notoriously slow, manual and unfit for purpose, confirmed by the 35% of companies stating that they still rely entirely on manual processes, with larger companies (over 500 employees) more likely to use manual methods than smaller ones. Unsurprisingly, nearly half (45%) of C-Level Execs and 40% of founders said they would like to see changes or innovations in their onboarding process in the next few years and 97% of business owners believe business onboarding can be more cost effective.

Looking ahead, 60% respondents plan to utilise AI as part of their KYB process within the next 3 years, and the key improvements they anticipate investing in include: onboarding behavioural analysis, real-time data access, and consolidated data management. Meanwhile 100% of C-level executives, managers and founders said that AI and automation will be part of their onboarding process within the next 5 years.

Liam Chennells, CEO at Detected commented:
“KYB is a data and process problem, not just a data problem. Our study confirms what we already know, there is an urgent need to improve in this area and the solution needs to be flexible based on the wide ranging requirements of different businesses. That is why we launched Copilot. The road ahead is about transforming these challenges into opportunities for growth and improvement, and we're committed to leading that charge."

Frequent updates and lengthy processes are another frustration for business owners. 70% of companies update their KYB processes every quarter to six months, reflecting the ongoing need for improvement. On average, business onboarding takes 23 hours to complete, whilst more companies reported that the process spans from a day to a week rather than under an hour. Interestingly, C-Suite executives tended to underestimate the time required for onboarding compared to product teams.

Detected’s mission is to deliver an exceptional experience for any company on earth to validate businesses they want to work with. With Copilot by Detected, everything changes. Copilot can be used as a complete end-to-end platform or seamlessly integrated via API to existing systems such as Salesforce.