“Know Your Customer (KYC)”

Introducing Neufund’s KYC and verification process

As described in our previous blogpost and discussed in all the conversations in our community we will have a KYC and verification process in place. We take all regulatory and compliance requirements very seriously. Our intention is to enable a fully-legal and regulated investment process for both our investors and companies listed on the platform. Therefore to be fully compliant under German regulation we are obliged to have the highest possible screening standard yet still be user friendly. It is necessary to keep our investors protected and ensure their awareness of existing risks.

What does KYC stand for?

Know Your Customer (KYC) is the process of a business identifying and verifying the identity of its clients. The significance of “Know Your Customer” (KYC) is becoming increasingly important.

“KYC” refers to the steps taken by a financial institution (or business) to:

• Establish the identity of the customer
• Understand the nature of the customer’s activities (the primary goal is to verify that the source of the customer’s funds is legitimate)
• Assess money laundering risks associated with that customer for purposes of monitoring the customer’s activities

Know Your Customer procedures are a critical function to assess and monitor customer risk.

Today banks, financial institutions, and cryptocurrency exchanges are required to abide by KYC requirements. To be fully compliant under German regulation we are obliged to have the highest possible KYC standard yet still be user friendly. It’s designed to prevent fraud, and it’s also frequently paired with Anti-Money Laundering (AML) verification requirements.

Basically it means that Neufund will need to get to know you better by collecting your personal information and your identification documents.

Why do we need it?

The verification of your Neufund account is required so that we can provide you with better service, and comply with the financial service regulations.

Your information is always kept confidential and is only used for compliance purposes.

What is required from you as an investor?

In the first step you will be asked to specify if you are going to act on your behalf or you will represent a company. KYC will be different in each case.

As individual, in the next step you will need to fill in a basic form completing your personal details such as :

• your full name,
• date of birth
• and your residential address.

As you already know, due to the regulatory restrictions we will not be able to accept investors from the US, and/or PEP (politically exposed person) therefore you will be asked to state that you are not both.

Now its time for us to verify your identification

Since the approval of video identification in compliance with the Money Laundering Act in Germany in 2014, we at Neufund who are subject to this regulation, decided to use IDnow as our video identification solution. It offers both us and our investors many advantages:

Anytime and anywhere
No additional hardware
Easy and quick in a few minutes

Highest security standard & legal compliance
Real time processing of the request

With ID video-ident we verify you in a few minutes, easy, secured and in compliance with the law. All you need is an internet access, a computer with a webcam or a smartphone or tablet and your valid identity document.

Using IDnow will verify your account within minutes and you will be able to start depositing funds and investing in ETOs on our platform.

The benefits of doing the video call is clear, however we are well aware that some of our investors will either not have the technology or simply will not want to participate in such a call. For these cases we have kept the traditional formal KYC process. This means that after completing your personal details you will be required to upload a valid passport or both sides of your governmentally issued identification card.

This copy must contain:

• Full Name
• Date of Birth
• Photograph
• Valid Expiry Date
• ID/passport number

In some cases we might ask you for proof of address, which can be any utility bill or bank statement containing your name address and issue date from the last 6 months.

Our KYC agent will check your documents and will communicate with you within 1 day SLA (service level agreement), please ensure the email you enter in the registration process belongs to you and is readily accessible as we will use it to communicate with you regarding your KYC process.

For our corporate investors, we will have a different questioner . In this case we will need the following information (this is not including companies which will run an ETO with us):

• Company name
• Legal firm
• Jurisdiction under which the company is incorporate
• Company seat and address
• Commercial register number and form
• Name of the legal representative e.g director
• Names of the beneficial owner (if they hold at least 25% of the shares)
• POA — power of attorney
• Proof of address
• Commercial register entry
• Shareholder list
• Transparency register entry
• Article of association
• Proof of ID of the beneficial owner and the legal representative

We believe that by implementing such a process we will be able to give you a better service. This might sound and look like a very complex process however the benefit of doing things the right way have much more benefits for you and for us.

Join our telegram chat if you have questions or want to meet the Neufund community and team.