Fintech CRIF and regtech Know Your Customer have partnered with Ping An OneConnect Bank (Hong Kong) Limited (PAOB) to improve digital onboarding for its SME customers. The collaboration seeks to set the foundations to support PAOB in meeting the growing demand for quick-to-access banking services by local small and medium enterprises (SMEs) through the provision of an increasingly scalable and cloud-native solution.

CRIF, Know Your Customer – PAOB partnership details As per the press release information, the new system, which was developed by CRIF and Know Your Customer, leverages real-time registry connections to retrieve documents and map shareholders in an automatic manner. This offers a centralised solution that integrates data from a multitude of official sources into a single place, enabling PAOB to simplify the SME onboarding process and facilitate the customer due diligence (CDD) process while concomitantly decreasing costs and manual work. The CRIF – Know Your Customer joint offering provides digital banks and financial institutions with a one-stop solution that aims to address their client onboarding and ongoing monitoring requirements.

The solution employs the unique strengths of both sides to empower digital banks and FIs with all the compliance tools they need. CRIF offers a substantial business data and intelligence portfolio, including credit data, Open Banking, and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) data, whereas Know Your Customer provides extensive coverage of real-time registry connections, Ultimate Beneficial Owner mapping across borders, and modular workflow capabilities. Commenting on the announcement, Jamie Anderson, Global Head of Sales at Know Your Customer said that they have seen the modular design and set-up of their solutions to be especially compatible with the requirements of virtual and digital banks in Hong Kong and worldwide.

Per their statement, the company is looking forward to collaborating with CRIF and supporting PAOB’s vision of improved SME onboarding and next-gen digital compliance, together with their growth in Hong Kong and across the APAC region. Ivan Chow, Head of Strategy & Partnerships of PAOB added that following their 2020 launch, they have been developing their virtual banking services for local SMEs and have helped expedite the bank account opening and loan approval process. The spokesperson said that this was well-received by SME customers, especially due to the pandemic’s general impact on the SME sector, and as Hong Kong is now opening, they believe SMEs would be benefited from the economic rebound and recovery, as the demand for operating capital financing is likely to increase.

Per the official, the collaboration with CRIF and Know Your Customer is set to further enhance the company’s customer-centric experience for SME clients. As per the press release information, with more than 360,000 SMEs making up more than 98% of all businesses in the region, SMEs are considered crucial for the development of Hong Kong’s economy. .