Enhanced due diligence for a private bank: Uncovering source of wealth and hidden risks in the Middle East

The challenge:

A leading UK private bank, and long-term customer of Diligencia, required a range of enhanced due diligence checks to be undertaken on a high-net-worth individual they were dealing with, and their associated business interests across the Middle East. As part of the bank’s internal risk processes, and in order to meet external regulatory requirements, a clear picture of their source of wealth, their holdings, and whether they had any reputational or legal concerns was required.

Specifically, the bank required:

• The verification of the identity and nationality of the subject
• An understanding of their corporate affiliations and associated assets
• The discovery and validation of their source of wealth
• A search for any litigation history and screening for any adverse media (in and across both English and Arabic sources)
• Any other relevant information uncovered on the individual

The solution:

The first step involved the client using their subscription to Diligencia’s platform, ClarifiedBy, to identify the individual, confirm their nationality, and review the businesses in which they were involved — either as a director or owner.

In the second stage, the client engaged Diligencia to provide additional, reliable intelligence on the individual. Using records from official sources across the Middle East and Africa, and native-language research, our analysts delivered comprehensive information that offered clarity and uncovered information beyond that found across other commercial databases.

Diligencia’s team used a number of research methods, including:

• Retrieving and verifying official documents from a variety of digital and non-digitised sources
• Analysing cross-border ownership and asset tracing
• In-depth searches of media and litigation history across open sources and social media
• Human source (‘on the ground’) enquiries to provide context and reputational insights

The result:

The information Diligencia provided, which was all attributed to sources, helped our client validate the subject’s source of wealth, identify actual (if any) and potential risks in doing business with them, and build a clearer picture of the individual’s background. This supported the bank’s compliance and risk management processes, and significantly reduced the time taken to undertake a thorough pre-onboarding review.