Compliance for Cross-Border Payments: A Comprehensive Checklist

As the international business landscape continues to evolve, cross-border payments have become an integral part of global commerce. Despite their importance, these transactions often pose unique challenges for firms, especially concerning compliance with diverse global regulations.

This article delves into the intricacies of compliance for cross-border payments and provides a comprehensive checklist for firms engaging in these transactions.

What are Cross-Border Payments?

Cross-border payments are transactions in which the payer and the payee reside in different countries. These cross-border transactions can vary in nature and scale, ranging from individual remittances to large-scale corporate trades.

They generally require a more intricate processing network than domestic payments, given the need to comply with the regulations of the involved countries and often necessitating currency conversion.

Types of Cross-Border Payments

• Remittances: The transfer of funds from one individual to another country, typically directed to family or friends.
• Business to Business (B2B): Transactions involving the exchange of payments between companies across borders, often of significant value.
• Business to Customer (B2C): The sale of products or services by businesses to customers in different countries.
• Customer to Business (C2B): Transactions where a customer pays a business in another country, commonly for services or online purchases.
• Government Payments: Financial interactions between the governments of different countries, encompassing aid, trade tariffs, and other types of payments.
• High-Value Cross-Border Transactions: Transactions related to the acquisition of valuable assets such as real estate, art, jewellery, or luxury vehicles.
• Card-Present Transactions: Payments made abroad using physical credit or debit cards, typically by tourists, expatriates, and business travellers.
• Card-Not-Present (CNP) Transactions: International e-commerce shopping and commercial payments to overseas companies fall under this category.

The Importance of Compliance in Cross-Border Payments

Compliance in cross-border payments refers to the observance of all relevant legal and regulatory requirements associated with conducting international cross-border payment transactions. Compliance is critical because:

• Regulatory Penalties: Non-compliance can result in hefty fines, legal penalties, and damage to a company’s reputation.
• Customer Trust: Businesses must demonstrate that customers can trust them with their most sensitive information, especially as more data moves online.
• Revenue Protection: Aside from regulatory penalties, non-compliance can lead to customer payouts, customer churn, or system upgrades, all of which impact revenue.

The Challenges of Real-Time B2B Payments Compliance

Real-time cross-border business payments add another layer of complexity to compliance. Compliance teams must operate with diverse stakeholders, including payees, financial institutions, investors, and regulatory authorities, to ensure that cross-border transactions are completed within regulatory frameworks, all while managing a large amount of data. Key challenges include outdated technology, cost management, and data visibility and control.

1: Outdated Technology

The rapid pace of digitization has made it more difficult for compliance teams to stay ahead of financial crimes, especially in the payments space, where fraudsters can move illicit money at a speed never seen before. As digital progress speeds up, compliance teams find it hard to keep up, especially in payments.

Old technology makes it tough to actively prevent financial crimes, making the system vulnerable to fraudsters who take advantage of quick illegal money transfers. The difficulty in upgrading systems hinders efficient compliance, posing a big challenge in ensuring cross-border transactions follow regulations.

2: Cost Management

Manual processes mean that new customer acquisitions or regulations bring new costs. Compliance budgets have increased significantly over the past few years, with global spending on Anti-Money Laundering (AML)/ Know Your Customer (KYC) data and services expected to total a record amount in 2022. You can save a lot on penalties with a proper cross-border payment system.

3: Data Visibility and Control

One of the biggest challenges of real-time cross-border payments compliance is ensuring that transactions are conducted quickly, efficiently, and securely while remaining vigilant in detecting and preventing fraud, money laundering, and other financial crimes.

Compliance Checklist for Cross-Border Payments

To ensure compliance with cross-border payments, firms should adopt the following best practices:

• Verify Identities: Always conduct Know Your Customer (KYC) checks to authenticate both the sender and recipient.
• Transaction Monitoring: Utilise advanced software to monitor transactions in any Cross-border payment system for potential suspicious activities or patterns.
• Frequent Audits: Regularly perform internal and external audits to ensure adherence to local and international laws.
• Staff Training: Ensure your team is well-informed about the latest Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations and proficient in identifying potential issues. They should have a thorough understanding of the Cross-border payment solutions in use.
• Record Maintenance: Keep detailed records of all transactions for at least five years, as mandated by most jurisdictions.

How to Overcome Compliance Challenges: Partnering with KYC Hub

KYC Hub offers advanced compliance solutions, including an automated onboarding process and transaction monitoring solutions. Their transaction monitoring solution offers a Compliance Checklist for Cross-Border Payments, helping businesses navigate the complex world of cross-border payment compliance effectively.

Here’s what you can expect with KYC Hub:

✅Customisable Workflow Templates: KYC Hub’s Workflow Automation solution allows our clients to create no-code bespoke workflows either from scratch or from our vast library of pre-configured workflows that can be customised as per your organisation’s requirements.

✅Automated Case Assignment: KYC Hub’s Workflow Automation solution has provisions for automated case assignment where cases can automatically be assigned to a specific role to ensure that manual intervention is unnecessary.

✅Workflow Monitoring: KYC Hub’s Workflow Automation solution allows users to monitor and track progress in real-time, enabling quick identification and resolution of bottlenecks.

✅Easy Integration with Third-Party Systems: The Workflow Automation solution integrates with various third-party systems, including data sources, to streamline AML processes and improve data accuracy.

✅Automatic Alerts and Notifications: KYC Hub’s Workflow Automation solution sends automatic alerts and notifications to relevant personnel to ensure the timely completion of tasks and reduce the risk of compliance issues.

Want to know what more we can do for you? Book a slot!

Conclusion

With KYC Hub, businesses can improve their compliance processes, reduce false positives, and ensure cross-border business payments. This allows them to remain compliant amidst shifting regulatory and risk environments while providing a seamless, efficient, and secure transaction process.