More than 600 buyside firms and corporations are registered for Markit | Genpact KYC Services centralised service to streamline the management of know your customer (KYC) information required by banks.
Markit | Genpact KYC Services has appointed Jon May as chief executive officer. He joins the firm from Goldman Sachs where he was a managing director and global head of client onboarding as well as head of securities operations and operations data quality management in India. May will join Markit | Genpact KYC Services in January 2015, based in London.
The 600+ firms now registered with the service that together represent over 16,000 funds and entities include BlueBay Asset Management, GoldenTree Asset Management and Pictet Asset Management. The service opened its KYC.com portal for buyside firms and corporations in May 2014. New functionality within the portal supports the needs of large asset managers that operate thousands of funds and managed accounts. The service went live for subscribing banks in August.
Spencer Woodward, co-head of operations at BlueBay Asset Management, says: “Centralising the management of KYC information makes it faster and easier for us to do business with banks and vice versa. With the documentation stored centrally, the banks we trade with have access to the complete customer profile they need so we can trade efficiently.”
May says: “The opportunity to lead the service created by Markit and Genpact is exciting. Transforming how KYC and other data required by regulators are managed is a priority across the industry and Markit | Genpact have built a robust service that is already delivering value to subscribers. For years, Markit and Genpact have helped thousands of firms to track customer information and comply with financial regulations worldwide. KYC Services, which has access to solutions such as Markit’s Counterparty Manager, is uniquely positioned to support the centralisation of data across multiple areas which will streamline compliance and help firms operate more efficiently.”
Michele Trogni, managing director and head of managed services at Markit, says: “Our KYC service has great momentum. We launched on schedule and have our operating platform in place. Recruiting the right CEO was the next step and we are delighted that Jon May is bringing his extensive expertise and leadership to our service. We are also excited that more than 600 firms have registered in the past six months for KYC Services.”
Markit | Genpact KYC Services centralises the management of KYC data through a common standard, to help the financial services industry reduce operational risk, lower costs and speed time to market by making it easier to open and maintain trading accounts. The service is free for buyside firms and corporations.