As regulatory expectations rise and customer onboarding becomes increasingly digital, Know Your Customer (KYC) teams are facing mounting pressure to keep up. Traditional processes are showing their limits, making it harder for firms to stay aligned with Anti-Money Laundering (AML) KYC, risk, and financial crime compliance requirements.

Why? Because legacy setups are creating operational friction. Disconnected systems, manual checks, and rigid review cycles are slowing down delivery and reducing the impact of AML solutions. At the same time, scrutiny is intensifying, criminal behavior is evolving, customer expectations are shifting, and data volumes are expanding. Without modernization supported by RegTech (Regulatory Technology), KYC can’t stay agile or scalable.

Perpetual KYC (pKYC) addresses this by shifting from slow, periodic reviews to near real‑time, event‑driven monitoring supported by modern data, intelligent automation, and AI‑enhanced analytics.

Why legacy KYC operating models are holding organizations back

Each year, tens of billions of dollars are spent on KYC globally. Costs continue to rise as screening demands, regulatory obligations, and data complexities expand. Yet traditional KYC systems remain siloed, manual, and increasingly misaligned with what AML KYC compliance teams expect.

Regulators are explicit that static, time-bound models are incompatible with a risk-based approach. Recent enforcement actions underscore that outdated KYC and transaction monitoring processes are significant liabilities. These pressures reinforce the urgency of modernization, as explored in the new horizon for AML solutions.

The case for pKYC

Early adopters are already reporting significant benefits:

  • False positives reduced by 20–40%.
  • Onboarding Turnaround Time (TAT) reduced by 40–60%.
  • Case backlogs reduced by 50–70%, depending on baseline maturity.

Taken together, these gains remove 70–90% of manual periodic review work.

pKYC fundamentally reshapes AML KYC compliance by replacing calendar-driven controls with an always-on, intelligent approach – particularly critical for risk, fincrime, and compliance functions, which are under increasing regulatory scrutiny.

By moving away from static assessments toward event-driven financial crime risk management, firms can gain a near-instant view of customer risk – one that strengthens regulatory control while significantly reducing operational costs and customer friction.

Introducing the pKYC triad operating model

pKYC is enabled through an integrated operating model known as the pKYC triad. It brings together data, automation, and analytics into a single, closed-loop system that allows for end-to-end financial crime compliance.

Data modernization

A unified, high-integrity data foundation enables reliable customer identity resolution, eliminates rekeying, reconciles identity attributes across systems, and ensures that risk signals are accurate, connected, and explainable. This capability is foundational to scalable compliance and aligns closely with data-powered financial services.

Intelligent automation

Workflow orchestration and event-driven processing compress onboarding cycles, reduce manual touchpoints, and turn episodic controls into continuous risk management. Automation ensures consistency while enabling better customer experience (CX) across channels and reinforcing AML KYC compliance obligations.

Intelligent analytics

AI-enabled analytics act as controlled copilots, accelerating analyst judgment, surfacing material risks earlier, and strengthening defensibility. This supports broader transformation initiatives outlined in a call to action for banks in the AI age.

The pKYC triad operates as a closed loop:

  • Data fuels automation.
  • Automation creates structure for analytics.
  • Analytics enhance both data and automation.

Transformation occurs when these capabilities mature together under a single operating model, supported by RegTech-driven insights like activating GenAI at scale.

pKYC in a nutshell: From periodic reviews to continuous KYC

Although KYC and AML processes are rarely welcomed by customers, they sit at the heart of CX. When compliance is slow or repetitive, institutions appear bureaucratic. When it’s timely, intelligent, and explainable, it reinforces trust throughout the digital customer onboarding journey. pKYC embeds compliance directly into the flow of customer interactions, so identity confirmation and risk reassessment can occur contextually rather than as disruptive, standalone events. This supports Capgemini’s broader focus of driving customer centricity in banking and capital markets without compromising control.

One consolidated customer risk profile across the KYC lifecycle

A pKYC framework creates a consolidated, continuously refreshed view of customer-level financial crime risk by integrating KYC, transaction monitoring, sanctions, and adverse media data to support proactive financial crime risk management. This model supports earlier detection, smarter prioritization, and scalable compliance across segments like retail and commercial banking, cards and payments, and wealth management.

Conclusion

A future-ready KYC model built on pKYC‑

To stay competitive and compliant, organizations must move from reactive KYC frameworks to adaptive, intelligence-driven financial crime compliance operations. pKYC transforms compliance from a periodic obligation into a continuous, defensible capability that reduces costs, improves CX, and strengthens trust. This evolution is accelerated through solutions like Perpetual KYC Catalyst by Capgemini, and supported by ongoing innovation in risk and financial crime compliance.

Download the whitepaper to explore the pKYC operating model, implementation considerations, and regulatory implications in detail.

Download the whitepaper