Societe Generale strengthens its partnership with SWIFT

Societe Generale today announced that its Global Transaction Banking arm (GTB) has selected SWIFT and its SWIFTNet network to send its domestic payments to STET, the payment infrastructure which processes French and Belgian retail transactions, and which has a 51.8% share of the euro payment market.

In addition, after acting as a pilot for the tool, SOCIETE GENERALE has signed the SWIFT KYC Registry contract, strengthening its relationship with SWIFT. SWIFT’s KYC Registry allows data sharing, enabling users to address the requirements of Know Your Customer (KYC) compliance, the due diligence activities that financial institutions must perform on their counterparts in order to do business with them.

SWIFT’s KYC Registry uses a standardised dataset and provides a secure way of sharing KYC information globally, therefore helping users reduce the cost, effort and risk related to KYC compliance. It has the potential to connect the 7000+ member banks involved in correspondent banking, providing a single point of reference for KYC information. At the same time, it enables banks to maintain the ownership of and the responsibility for their data. Already, the KYC Registry includes almost 1500 financial institutions in 176 countries. This represents a significant base that will improve the compliance process, making it easier and less costly for participants.

The KYC Registry has been developed in recognition of the fact that KYC requirements will be increasingly stringent, requiring more and more resources and time, so there is a clear need for a standardised, collaborative tool in this non-competitive area to create cost efficiency.