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The Antwerp World Diamond Centre (AWDC) has introduced a digital customer-screening tool diamantaires can use to prevent money-laundering.
Know Your Customer Portal (KYCP) is intended to identify customers and report any suspicious behavior for transactions above EUR 10,000 ($11,515), the organization said last week. The device will help diamond retailers fulfill their legal anti-money laundering (AML) and know your customer (KYC) requirements faster, more efficiently, and with accuracy, it added.
The AWDC developed the tool in collaboration with the information technology (IT) consultancy company KYC Portal. The trade organization invested EUR 250,000 ($287,280) to enable it to offer the solution to the 1,470 Antwerp diamond companies it represents. The application allows for the quick detection and reporting of suspicious transactions or goods, screens sanctions lists, identifies ultimate beneficial owners, and generates alerts for potential risks.
“With this tool, the Antwerp diamond sector is at the forefront of non-financial institutions when it comes to compliance and transparency,” said Trisevgeni Stavropoulos, head of compliance at the AWDC. “For many diamantaires — often small, family-run businesses — the administrative burden is considerable. Thanks to KYCP, they can now perform client screenings more efficiently, more quickly, and with a very small margin of error.”
Image: The Antwerp skyline. (Shutterstock)
