AML and KYC for fund administrators
Automate KYC, KYB and AML checks to onboard investors faster, reduce compliance risk, and evidence every subscription to the managers, depositaries and supervisors you answer to.
KYC, KYB and AML compliance in one configurable platform
UBO discovery, ongoing monitoring and case management in a single case view
250+ jurisdictions and 16,000+ ID documents
How does ID-Pal support fund administrators?
ID-Pal delivers KYC, KYB and AML compliance in a single configurable platform, which maps directly to the layered problem fund administrators face. For the entities, its KYB suite covers ultimate beneficial owner and PSC identification, PEP, sanctions and adverse media screening, ongoing monitoring, and case management through a single case view, with global registry access supporting entity verification across 250+ jurisdictions. That enterprise KYB depth followed the integration of NorthRow’s KYB and AML compliance platform into ID-Pal, which is why the suite handles ownership discovery, monitoring and case management rather than a simple registry lookup.
For the individuals those structures surface, the same platform applies document authentication across 16,000+ identity documents, thousand-dimension biometric facial matching, and independently certified liveness detection (iBeta Level 1 and Level 2). Because it is one workflow, the administrator is not joining an entity tool to a separate identity tool. It is one case, one audit trail. The platform is configurable to the rules a given fund or jurisdiction requires, is ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 certified and GDPR compliant, and deploys out of the box or via API and SDK to fit existing onboarding operations.
Fully certified and industry accredited
Key takeaways
Verify the entity and the individuals
A fund administrator’s onboarding has to verify both the investing entity and the individuals behind it, resolve ultimate beneficial ownership through layered structures, screen for risk, and keep it all monitored across the investor lifecycle.
The hard part is the structure
The hard part is not the single check, it is structured, cross-border subscriptions: an investor that is itself a company, trust or fund, sitting inside a chain of holding entities.
One configurable platform
ID-Pal delivers KYC, KYB and AML compliance in one configurable platform, with individual verification, ownership resolution for corporate clients following the integration of NorthRow’s KYB platform, screening and a full audit trail.
Across the whole fund lifecycle
Verification runs across the whole fund lifecycle: investor onboarding, transfer-agency changes, high-value transactions, and periodic reviews.
What the platform covers
| Capability | What it does |
|---|---|
| KYB and UBO discovery | Entity confirmation via global registry access, with UBO and PSC identification followed through holding companies, nominees and trusts, across 250 or more jurisdictions |
| Biometric facial matching | Thousand-dimension facial matching confirms the individual is the document holder |
| Liveness detection | Independently certified to iBeta Level 1 and Level 2, so a photo or replay does not pass |
| Address verification | Electronic verification against trusted data sources, removing separate proof of address |
| KYB and UBO resolution | Entity confirmation, ultimate beneficial owner and PSC identification through intermediate structures, across 250 or more jurisdictions |
| AML screening | PEP, sanctions and adverse media, on entities and every relevant individual |
| Ongoing monitoring | Screening stays live across the investor lifecycle, not just at subscription |
| Case management and audit trail | Every check, decision and piece of evidence in a single case view |
| Deployment | Out of the box, via API and SDK, or through a native Salesforce integration |
Book a walkthrough of our IDV and AML solution for fund administrators
Supporting 16,000+ ID documents and 400+ data sources, expand into 250+ jurisdictions faster while maintaining consistent controls across regions and customer types.
Trusted by leading wealth managers and fund admins
ID-Pal helped us achieve our goal of onboarding new clients completely digitally and, for standard risk cases, in around 30 minutes, without any human intervention. ID-Pal’s facial matching, liveness and biometric checks have proved very robust and secure. It has considerably reduced the time it takes to onboard new clients onto our wealth platform.
Richard Gerrard, Head of Operations
Ardan International
What AML and verification challenges do fund administrators face?
Fund administrators sit at a demanding point in the compliance chain. They onboard investors and the entities behind them on behalf of the funds they service, carry AML obligations across multiple jurisdictions, and answer to fund managers, depositaries and supervisors who all expect the due diligence to be watertight and evidenced.
The difficulty is rarely the individual check. It is the structure. A single subscription can involve an underlying investor that is itself a company, a trust or another fund, sitting inside a chain of holding entities across more than one jurisdiction. Behind that structure are directors and ultimate beneficial owners who have to be identified and screened. The administrator has to verify all of it, keep it current as investors and ownership change, and produce an audit trail that stands up when a manager or supervisor asks how a particular subscription was cleared. Doing that across a growing book, under fee pressure, is where manual or fragmented processes become both the bottleneck and the risk.
Four pressures compound the work: regulatory complexity across jurisdictions; operational inefficiency from disconnected, manual workflows; fraud and security risk, including AI-driven document fraud and deepfakes; and investor expectations of a fast, low-friction onboarding experience.
What should a fund administrator's verification process cover?
A process built for fund administration handles the entity, the individuals behind it, and ongoing screening as one connected job with a single audit trail. The five components:
Entity verification
Confirm the investing entity is registered, active and legitimate using authoritative registry data across the relevant jurisdictions.
Ultimate beneficial owner resolution
Identify the individuals who ultimately own or control the entity, including where control runs through intermediate holding companies, nominees or trusts. Registry data alone often does not resolve the real owner.
Individual verification
Verify the directors and beneficial owners the structure surfaces with document authentication, biometric facial matching, liveness detection and address verification.
AML screening
Screen the entity and every relevant individual against PEP, sanctions and adverse media sources, and record the outcome.
Ongoing monitoring
Keep screening live over the relationship, so a new sanctions match or change in an investor’s risk status is caught while it matters, not at the next periodic review.
See how fund administrators use ID-Pal to simplify investor verification and onboarding
In practice: Ardan International
Ardan International, an international wealth and fund platform, used ID-Pal to enhance onboarding while maintaining stringent fraud prevention, moving to a seamless, secure digital process. It is a useful reference point for administrators weighing the same trade-off between speed and control.
Where does identity verification apply across the fund lifecycle?
Fund administration involves regulated workflows well beyond the first subscription. Each stage carries fraud risk and needs accurate, fast verification.
Investor onboarding
Accelerate initial due diligence with document checks, biometric matching and automated screening during account opening.
Transfer agency processes
Support subscriptions, redemptions, changes of address and authorised-signatory updates, so every change is verified, auditable and protected against fraud.
High-value transactions
Strengthen security for transfer requests, payment changes and investment amendments, verifying identity to prevent impersonation.
Periodic reviews and remediation
Simplify ongoing KYC refresh and remediation with automated re-verification, reducing operational burden while staying aligned with evolving expectations.
What are a fund administrator's core AML obligations?
A fund administrator has to apply customer due diligence to the investors and entities it onboards, identify beneficial owners, understand the purpose and intended nature of the relationship, and keep the information current, under the UK Money Laundering Regulations and the requirements of its supervisor. The obligations scale with risk: standard due diligence for lower-risk investors, and enhanced due diligence where risk is higher.
Enhanced due diligence typically applies where an investor is a politically exposed person, is connected to a higher-risk jurisdiction, or sits inside a complex or opaque ownership structure, all of which are common in fund work. Enhanced due diligence means going further: establishing source of funds and, where relevant, source of wealth, obtaining senior sign-off, and applying closer ongoing monitoring. A process that cannot tell standard and enhanced cases apart, and evidence which was applied, is exposed when a supervisor reviews a file. The precise obligations depend on the fund, the investor and the administrator’s supervisor, so firms should confirm against current guidance.
How is KYB different from KYC for a fund administrator?
KYB verifies the investing business or fund entity and identifies who ultimately owns and controls it. KYC verifies the individual directors and beneficial owners that KYB surfaces. Fund administration needs both, run together, because verifying an entity without confirming the real people behind it leaves the risk half-checked.
| KYB (the entity) | KYC (the individuals) | |
|---|---|---|
| What it verifies | The investing company, trust or fund | The directors and beneficial owners behind it |
| Core checks | Registration and status, UBO/PSC identification, entity screening | Document authentication, biometric facial matching, liveness, address |
| Key question answered | Is this entity legitimate and who really controls it | Are the named people real and correctly identified |
Running both on one platform gives a single case view and one audit trail across individual and corporate clients, rather than reconciling separate tools.
What should a fund administrator ask when shortlisting a platform?
- How do you resolve ultimate beneficial ownership when an investor sits inside a chain of holding entities and trusts?
- Do entity verification, individual verification and AML screening happen in one workflow and one case view?
- How does ongoing monitoring surface a change in an investor’s status, and how quickly?
- What does the audit trail look like when a manager or supervisor asks us to evidence a specific subscription decision?
- How wide is jurisdictional coverage against the markets our funds invest from?
- How does the platform stand up to deliberate document fraud, including AI-generated forgeries?
Frequently asked questions
Why is AML harder for fund administrators than for a typical firm?
Administrators onboard entities, not just individuals, and those entities often sit inside multi-layered, cross-border ownership structures. Verifying the entity, resolving its beneficial owners, verifying those individuals and screening everyone, then keeping it current, is more involved than a single-person check.
Can one platform handle entity checks and individual identity verification?
Yes. Running them on one platform gives a single case view and one audit trail across the whole subscription. ID-Pal delivers KYC, KYB and AML compliance in a single configurable platform.
Does the platform support cross-border onboarding?
ID-Pal supports entity and identity verification across 250 or more jurisdictions and 16,000 or more identity documents, which suits administrators onboarding investors from multiple markets. Firms should confirm coverage against their specific jurisdictions.
Can ID-Pal be used beyond initial investor onboarding?
Yes. The platform supports verification across the fund lifecycle, including changes of address, authorised-signatory updates, high-value transactions, redemptions and account amendments.
How does ongoing monitoring work?
Screening continues over the life of the relationship rather than stopping at onboarding, so a new sanctions match or change in an investor’s risk status is picked up while the relationship is live.
When does enhanced due diligence apply to an investor?
Enhanced due diligence generally applies where risk is higher, for example a politically exposed person, a link to a higher-risk jurisdiction, or a complex or opaque ownership structure. It means going further on source of funds and, where relevant, source of wealth, with senior sign-off and closer monitoring. Firms should confirm the triggers against their supervisor’s current guidance.
How does the platform help evidence a subscription to a fund manager or supervisor?
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