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Agents are being warned that they risk financial and reputational costs by continuing to rely on manual methods of identity verification.
It comes as research by anti-money laundering (AML) platform SmartSearch found a quarter of 500 decision-makers at firms in the finance and banking, property and legal sectors admitted to verifying new customers using manual checks with hard-copy documents such as passports and driving licences.
Respondents also revealed that the documents took them days or even weeks to process – while only a third said they felt confident about being able to identify a fake.
SmartSearch has warned that firms are wasting hours of business time on the very processes which make them more vulnerable to money-launderers.
Martin Cheek, managing director of SmartSearch, said: “’Dirty money’ will continue to wash through the UK while firms persevere with time-consuming, flawed processes.
“We know that money-laundering attempts are on the rise, with almost half of regulated firms reporting an increase in attempts to launder money.”
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