Learn how to implement the customer identification program (CIP) for individuals and entities, verifying identities, determining beneficial ownership, and checking against public records across applicable jurisdictions to support onboarding.

Learn how to determine a legal name by applying jurisdiction policies and government issued documents, such as birth certificates, and name changes with affidavit name change certificates or official records.

Identify the entity's legal name from official documents and government registrations, and understand how it differs from individual names, including the role of sub entities in global organizations for KYC.

Search the entity name on the six dot ledger website to confirm registration and incorporation, then review filings for details like incorporation date, jurisdiction, and sic code.

Explore how entity formation documents define owners and ownership structures and how secretary of state records register entities. Verify entity names and statuses online for kyc compliance using sos websites.

Identify an entity's status and incorporation online using a California example, Golden State Variates, LLC, and verify active good standing and agent details for sanctions and PIP screening.

Explore how a legal entity is formed by registering with government authorities, safeguard brand names, and prevent others from misusing an entity’s name in the market.

Understand the legal entity identifier system, including lie number, its 20-digit alpha-numeric format, local operating units, glyph foundation, and how annual validity affects global transparency of cross-border transactions.

Search online for the entity’s LA number using Glyph and Rapidly websites, verify active status, print and save printouts with the URL, and attach reports to internal KYC software.

Explore how a trust acts as a secure, ownership-based arrangement with a grantor, trustee, and beneficiary to protect assets, ensure privacy, and deter lawsuits.

Learn the two main types of trust—living (revocable) and irrevocable—and how their terms, trustees, beneficiaries, and probate impact asset transfer and control.

Learn how domicile defines the permanent legal address for individuals and entities, distinguishing birthplace from permanent residence, and its role in tax, voting, and KYC.

Identify a company's domicile or registered address using OpenCorporates and secretary of state records, and distinguish it from the business address while verifying the agent details in Delaware.

Clarify the principal place of business for entities and individuals—the primary location where business is performed—and distinguish it from domicile, based on where records are kept and senior management operates.

Explain how a registered address differs from domicile and the principal place of business, and why it serves as the official contact point for legal notices and service of process.

Learn how to identify a company's incorporation or registration date through secretary of state records, articles of incorporation or organization, and state search tools.

Identify the incorporation or formation date by querying Secretary of State records (Delaware) and edgar filings, and confirm legal name, domicile address, and principal place of business.

Learn how business name and trade name, often used for branding and market recall, differ from legal name, and why KYC requires tracing entities, including DBA, aka, fka, and nka.

Identify a trade name online for entities like Walmart Inc. using tsdr.uspto word mark search, then verify the entity's trade name and address with sec.gov filings.

Explore entity financials, including balance sheets, cash flow statements, and profit and loss statements, and learn how these documents support KYC, risk assessment, and monitoring of financial crime.

Learn to locate a company's financials by consulting the 10-K form and annual report from NYSE and SEC, and cross-check figures on Yahoo Finance and the company's investor relations page.

Explore how financial regulations safeguard the stability and transparency of financial entities, from banks to real estate, and how KYC uses regulatory licensing and supervision to mitigate risk.

Explore tax documents, their types, exemptions, and country-specific requirements to onboard customers effectively in AML KYC.

Discover how the w8 form certifies foreign status for individuals or entities doing business with U.S. companies, detailing required information, withholding rules, and three-year validity.

Learn the w-9 form, an IRS tax form for US citizens and US based entities to provide name, address, and TIN for employment or income, with backup withholding penalties.

Explain how publicly traded companies issue shares on stock exchanges and how ownership influences voting power. Compare private and listed companies with USA and India regulatory standards.

Use sec.gov filings to determine if a company is publicly traded or privately held, exemplified by Walmart, by reviewing 10-K or 8-K forms and stock exchange listings.

Identify the tax identification number (tin/itin) and its role in kyc to track tax obligations, verify identities, and enable cross-border transactions and kyc compliance.

Identify a company's tax identification number using the sec edgar website, locate CIK and EIN in 8-K or 10-K reports, and understand IRS EIN validity.

Identify the company registration number, or CRN, as a unique identification issued by the secretary of state at incorporation and remaining constant through changes, varying by country or state formats.

Identify a company’s registration number by locating the secretary of state records for the correct state, using the company’s complete name to view incorporation date and file or CRN numbers.

Identify beneficial ownership and ultimate beneficial ownership using the 25% threshold to map owners and ensure AML KYC onboarding validates who controls a company.

Learn how to identify ownership structure and determine beneficial ownership by evaluating shareholders' percentage of shares, including entities, trusts, and individuals, presented graphically during onboarding.

Identify ownership structure by reviewing insider transactions and company filings on sec.gov or official websites, then use automated tools to drill down beneficial ownership and perform PEPs and sanctions screening.

Explore how SIC and NAICS codes classify a customer's industry and product, supporting KYC onboarding and risk assessment in the United States. Note NAICS replaces SIC and uses six-digit codes.

Identify a customer's nature of business by researching SIC and NAICS codes on sec.gov edgar, using Walmart as an example to verify the company's industry during onboarding.

Identify and verify the source of wealth during customer onboarding by collecting documents that prove inheritance, a dividend, investments, business profits, or earnings, and monitor ongoing risk.

Examine how the source of funds ties to the source of wealth, and learn how banks and companies verify documents to prove funds come from legitimate sources, reducing compliance risk.

Bearer shares enable anonymous ownership via a bearer certificate, unlike regular shares registered to investors. The lesson covers privacy, easy transfer, cross-jurisdiction legal limits, and AML and KYC implications.

Understand tax resistance and tax residence concepts across jurisdictions, including day thresholds, dual taxes, IRS and state filings, and CRS self-certification in AML/KYC onboarding.

Explore how tax havens offer low taxes and financial secrecy, and how onboarding from these jurisdictions impacts KYC, including beneficial ownership, shell companies, and red flags.

Explore what shell companies are, how they mimic real entities, legitimate and illegitimate uses, and the patterns banks use to detect them.

Explore how front companies resemble legitimate entities with physical offices and active staff while hiding money laundering and ownership tied to sanctioned countries.

Explain offshore and foreign bank accounts, their ability to hold multiple currencies, legitimate uses like international business and investments, and risks including tax evasion and money laundering.

Explain offshore banking units, licensed for non-residents to conduct international transactions in foreign currencies, and their relevance to tax benefits, confidentiality, and money laundering by criminals.

Explore how money service businesses (MSBs) operate as non-banking financial institutions that offer currency exchange and cross-border transfers, plus other services, under national and international regulation.

Explore how escrow accounts act as trusted middlemen in real estate and cross-border transactions, how they hold funds and documents, and how criminals may exploit them for money laundering.

Explore how a payable through account lets a foreign bank access the U.S. dollar payments system through a correspondent bank, highlighting KYC/AML risk and transparency gaps.

Examine how gatekeepers (banks, lawyers, accountants, company formation agents, auditors, and real estate agents) verify identity and monitor client activity to prevent money laundering, fraud, and terrorist financing in KYC.

Sanctions impose restrictions on assets to deter illegal activities and influence behavior. They are imposed by governments and the United Nations Security Council on individuals, groups, entities, or countries.

Learn about sanctions lists: unilateral, multilateral, and bilateral, how they differ, their global or domestic scope, and their use in sanctions screening by financial institutions.

Understand five sanction types: economic, diplomatic, military, sports, and environmental, and how each uses targeted measures to influence behavior and compel change.

Learn how sanctions impact the KYC process by identifying customers, verifying identities, assessing business purpose, and using sanctions lists to screen high-risk partners and monitor transactions.

Explore sanctions screening in KYC: how banks compare customer data to sanctions lists to detect prohibited entities, manage false positives, and escalate alerts for due diligence and regulatory reporting.

Explore how sanctions screening in KYC uses manual and automated tools to flag sanctioned parties, entities, or countries through name, payment, programmatic, and list screening.

A politically exposed person, or Pep, is a real individual with power and position who can influence government or private bodies. Fatf guidelines decide who qualifies as a Pep.

discover the three types of PEP: domestic, foreign, and international PEP, and how their positions determine financial risk and due diligence requirements within the KYC process.

Identify politically exposed persons (PEPs) using risk-based onboarding and public database checks, including third-party tools like World-Check and LexisNexis. Apply enhanced due diligence, monitor transactions, and file SARs when needed.

Analyze customer data through a risk-based assessment to categorize profiles, guide due diligence, and allocate AML resources for money laundering prevention and compliance.

Identify customer risk levels using risk-based assessment to determine enhanced due diligence and monitoring needs for various profiles, including PEPs, cash-intensive businesses, and high-risk industries.

Explore geographic risk in KYC and how country location affects money laundering and terrorist financing risk. Learn how sanctions, corruption, and tax havens shape due diligence.

Identify product risk and service risk in money laundering. Explore examples from savings, wire transfers, private banking and crypto services to determine due diligence.

Assess sector risk or industry risk as the financial crime exposure of a given sector, noting that high-risk industries face banking barriers and restricted access to services.

Learn how customer due diligence informs KYC and AML programs by evaluating risk profiles, onboarding customers, and applying simplified, standard, and enhanced due diligence.

Explore customer due diligence requirements for anti-money laundering and know-your-customer processes, including identity verification, beneficial ownership, pep and sanction screening, document collection, risk rating, and ongoing monitoring.

Streamline the customer due diligence process with automation, AI identity verification, and centralized data to speed onboarding, reduce errors, and ensure compliant, consistent KYC and AML monitoring.

Automated monitoring software analyzes transactions against risk profiles, sanctions, and PEP lists, and updates customer risk in real time to support ongoing due diligence.

Explain why customer due diligence (CDD) is essential in the KYC process, helping financial institutions assess risk, detect financial crimes, and prevent money laundering and related sanctions violations.

Enhanced due diligence strengthens standard checks by deeply verifying high-risk customers' identity, business activities, and source of funds through third-party verification, adverse media screening, and detailed documentation.

Apply enhanced due diligence for high-risk customers, while low and medium risk clients follow standard due diligence; identify PEPs, complex structures, adverse media, high-risk countries, and cash-intensive or offshore activities.

Explore enhanced due diligence risk factors across four categories—customer, geographic, industry, and product risk—and how they identify high-risk customers.

Financial institutions file a suspicious activity report (SAR) with the financial intelligence unit when they detect suspected money laundering, enabling regulators to act after due diligence.

Learn when to file a suspicious activity report (SAR) and the FinCEN criteria, including insider activity, transaction monitoring, and Bank Secrecy Act violations; understand timing, confidentiality, and documentation.

Learn how banks use risk-based transaction monitoring to analyze transfers, deposits, and withdrawals, assess KYC data, and meet AML and CTF requirements to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing.

Transaction monitoring systems safeguard integrity and compliance in the financial industry by detecting suspicious activity and ensuring aml, ctf, and kyc adherence to prevent money laundering and fraud.

Explore how transaction monitoring tools assess customer risk profiles during onboarding and monitor transactions post completion, periodically, using internal or third-party software to detect unusual activity.

Automating software technology streamlines workflows and boosts productivity, while banks set predefined alerts in transaction monitoring to flag large or unusual transactions.

Alerts are automated notifications triggered when transactions meet criteria, analyzed by rules, algorithms, or machine learning to detect unusual patterns indicating fraud, then assigned to analysts to close or escalate.

Identify two alert types in transaction monitoring—financial and non-financial—and learn how thresholds, non-monetary criteria, and behavior signals trigger alerts and escalation.

Explore the end-to-end timeline for AML KYC alerts, from trigger to investigation, as alerts pass through rule-based, risk-based, and final in-house teams with 30-day stages totaling 90 days.

Escalate and close pending alerts within 90 days through three review levels, combining automated triggers with human analysis to file SARs to the FIU and potentially freeze accounts.

Explore transaction monitoring software ecosystems used in banking, with a focus on alerts and investigation case studies, featuring Actimize dashboards, alert details, and counterparty and mode of transaction analysis.

Identify how thresholds in transaction monitoring trigger alerts and drive investigations, reflecting regulatory requirements, risk assessments, and internal policies, with examples like structuring, smurfing, rapid fund movement, and high-risk jurisdictions.

Learn how structuring hides illicit funds by breaking large deposits into smaller sums to evade reporting thresholds, triggering AML/CTF alerts and penalties under BSA and FinCEN regulations.

Explore micro structuring as a money laundering method that splits sums into smaller deposits to evade reporting thresholds, and learn how institutions detect patterns through monitoring and data analysis.

Understand smurfing as structuring funds to evade regulatory scrutiny, and how money launderers use smurfs to deposit across accounts and jurisdictions via wire transfers, cheques, money orders, and virtual currency.

Explore rapid movement of funds, or wash transactions, as funds transfer quickly across banks or jurisdictions, driven by legitimate business needs or risk of laundering.

Analyze how large transactions trigger alerts under policies and regulatory requirements, assess risk, and verify nature and purpose of involved entities, with real estate and mergers and acquisitions case studies.

Identify red flags in wire transfer transactions and understand money laundering layering, including varying amounts under reporting thresholds, international transfers, cashier's checks, and bearer instruments.

Examine non-wire transactions, including cash deposits, cheque deposits, money orders, prepaid cards, and ACH transfers, and understand how these methods move funds without wire transfers.

Identify the legal and regulatory implications of funds transfers to high-risk jurisdictions or sanctioned countries, and implement due diligence and robust KYC to ensure compliance and accurate reporting.

Explore the case study concept within transaction monitoring, detailing how analysts conduct investigations, produce analysis reports, and decide escalation or closure across level one to three teams.

Explain how a rule based approach guides level one transaction monitoring teams using predefined internal rules to investigate alerts, escalate when needed, and reduce false matches.

Apply a level one rule-based approach to AML and KYC investigations, using public sources for alerts and changes in business or address, and inform the relationship manager when needed.

Investigate dummy aml alerts by examining alert details, status, customer, and detection reasons, and filter by triggered date; assign to investigators and pursue transactions under one alert until closure.

Examines an end-to-end aml kyc case study of a 12 billion usd large incoming funds alert for Walmart, with Infosys and Adobe, detailing the investigation and finding no suspicious activity.

Investigate a micro structuring case where four bank transfers totaling 10,000 USD involve John A. Smith and Mary L. Smith, with no reason given, escalating to level two.

Investigate escalated level two alerts using a risk-based approach. Follow rule-based guidelines, raise RFIs when needed, and use third-party tools like World-check for verification and enhanced due diligence.

Negative media screening uses news and social media to identify potentially damaging information about customers and assess bank risk and regulatory compliance using tools like world-check.

Learn how banks conduct PEP screening using third party tools like LexisNexis or World-Check, perform enhanced due diligence, and monitor transactions for source of funds.

Explore how banks use automated sanctions screening during onboarding and transactions to detect matches against UN, EU, OFAC, and other lists, then apply enhanced due diligence.

Present how the CRS tool automates customer risk scoring using factors such as business risk, geographic risk, customer behavior, and transaction patterns, generating automatic risk scores and monitoring thresholds.

Explore how the RFI process supports transaction monitoring, including risk-based screening, when to request information, escalation to level three, and filing a SAR after uncooperative replies.

Explore how the level two team investigates alerts using a risk based approach, conducting screening in CRS tool, risk assessment, and decisions to close or file a SAR.

Describe how the level three bank in-house team conducts in-depth forensic analysis of transactions, uncovers hidden connections, collaborates with MLRO or CCO, and prepares SAR filings for regulatory authorities.