Realizing the promise of Perpetual KYC and why industry collaboration is the path forward

Perpetual KYC (pKYC) is a strategic imperative for financial institutions seeking to stay ahead of evolving regulation, rising compliance costs, and increasing customer expectations. But while the benefits of real-time, trigger-based compliance are clear, the path to implementation has been anything but simple.

At Encompass, we believe that achieving dynamic compliance requires more than technology. It demands collaboration, interoperability, and the right ecosystem of expert partners. To address this, Encompass is proud to be a founding design partner of Perpetual KYC Catalyst. An industry-first sandbox initiative spearheaded by Capgemini. This collaborative innovation brings together six best-in-class technology providers to deliver a practical, tested pathway to continuous compliance.

Why pKYC is critical now

Traditional KYC processes, typically operating on one-, three- or five-year cycles based on client risk, are reactive and prone to gaps. These periodic reviews can miss material changes in customer profiles in between reviews, exposing institutions to both regulatory and reputational risk. They also drive inefficiencies, poor customer experiences, and excessive manual workloads.

In contrast, perpetual KYC enables financial institutions to automatically identify and respond to risk-relevant changes in real time. Dynamically updating customer profiles and enhancing decision-making.

Key benefits of a pKYC model include:

• Timely risk updates to reflect material changes in a customer’s profile
• Improved data quality for smarter, faster decision-making
• Reduction in false positives and negatives through automation
• Smarter onboarding with embedded customer outreach, screening , and business identity verification
• Operational efficiency by automating much of the refresh workload and reducing due diligence backlogs

Yet despite the promise, pKYC remains difficult to achieve due to fragmented solutions and inaccurate and siloed data. Additionally, unclear technical standards, and high regulatory expectations around auditability, explainability, data governance, and security.

A practical path: The Perpetual KYC Catalyst

The Perpetual KYC Catalyst is a secure, controlled sandbox environment that empowers financial institutions to test, evaluate, and visualize real-world perpetual KYC operating models. By simulating full end-to-end processes, institutions can assess pKYC’s business impact, measure performance, and engage confidently with regulators.

The Perpetual KYC Catalyst brings together a six-in-a-box team of best-in-class technology leaders, each contributing vital capabilities:

• Encompass
• Capgemini
• Google Cloud
• Pega
• Quantexa
• WorkFusion

This collaborative approach ensures that every aspect of pKYC, from entity data management and orchestration to AI, decisioning, and automation, is addressed with depth and precision. The result is a cohesive, real-time operating model that can be evaluated, refined, and proven within a controlled environment.

The role of the Encompass EC360 platform

The EC360 Corporate Digital Identity (CDI) platform provides the data foundations that power the Catalyst, offering:

• Automation rules – configured to collect, combine and organize public data in real-time from a bank’s approved public data sources, jurisdictions and unique requirements.
• Streamlined data integration – data normalization, standardization, hierarchy rules and entity resolution are applied to create a consolidated view of an entity.
• Corporate structure mapping and UBO discovery – EC360 unwraps corporates structures in depth and identifies UBOs, fast.
• Standardized digital client profiles – complete with full data provenance and original source documents.
• Comprehensive audit trail – a full, time-stamped digital audit trail of every action taken is included in the digital profile.

The EC360 API seamlessly integrates with existing and other Catalyst systems to provide accurate reusable KYC data and the agility and scalability critical for KYC transformation and pKYC.

What the Catalyst offers

What sets the Perpetual KYC Catalyst apart is not just the technology, it is the ecosystem. By combining the strengths of industry leaders, this initiative offers a unique opportunity to align on best practice, reduce fragmentation, and accelerate adoption of next-generation compliance solutions. The sandbox has been purpose-built to help institutions move from legacy processes to scalable, perpetual compliance frameworks. Key features include:

• A secure testing environment where institutions can safely simulate processes, integrations, and new technologies
• Live pKYC visualizations that offer real-time insights for stakeholders and regulators
• Rapid feasibility assessments to quantify business value, optimize workflows, and support the internal business case
• Modular, cloud-compatible architecture that integrates with a firm’s existing infrastructure and technology stack
• Support for advanced technologies, including multi-agent AI solutions and intelligent data enrichment

Looking ahead

The Perpetual KYC Catalyst represents a critical milestone in the industry’s transition to continuous compliance. By leading the way, Encompass is helping financial institutions shift from concept to reality, proving that pKYC can be both regulator-ready and operationally viable.

Through this ecosystem approach, banks gain a clear line of sight to improved efficiency, stronger risk management, and a future-proof compliance framework. They can move forward with confidence, knowing every component has been tested and optimized for real-world deployment.

pKYC is no longer out of reach. With the right partners, and the right platform, it is a practical, scalable solution to today’s most pressing compliance challenges.