Today, Know Your Customer (KYC) and Know Your Business (KYB) can be seen as new front lines in defending against financial crime and regulatory censure, rather than just administrative hurdles to clear during onboarding. The modern Accounting Officer must navigate this new world of financial crime with increased vigilance.

The “Checkbox” method of due diligence, which was traditional, no longer works in countries such as South Africa, due to the need to get out of the FATF Grey List, and you may very well know with whom you are conducting business, but do you know with whom they are doing business?

In J-Cred, we recognise that the future of risk management has less to do with accessing data, and more to do with engineering for compliance and proving intelligence for action.

The Blind Spot: Hidden Conflicting Interests

The most costly risks are often those you can’t see. A standard credit check, or search via CIPC might tell you a supplier is financially sound and legally registered. But it may not pick up such matters as the new director of your supplier’s business being your procurement manager’s spouse, or your three “independent” suppliers all having the same bank account and address.

Such Conflicts of Interest (COI) are where the potential for procurement fraud and corruption lies. Identification of such conflicts goes beyond what can be analysed linearly, as one has to consider interconnections between points of data.

I2 (Identity Intelligence) Meets Compliance

Where industry leaders concentrate primarily on volume, we focus on connection. As a Niche Bureau, KTO Digital (developers of J-Cred) have leveraged our agility to build a cutting-edge solution based on technology that lessens the burden to see the connections from your risk managers, compliance team, forensic investigators and accounting officers.

Unlike traditional databases that store information in fragmented rows and columns, our solution maps entities (people, companies, addresses, bank accounts) as nodes and the relationships between them as links. We can visualise such connections between these entities.

Overview – how it works

Our platform enables organisations to take their own in-house databases, such as their employees’ payroll information or internally maintained vendors, and then link those with our universe of official data.

This creates a “Spiderweb” of intelligence that instantly flags:

• Employee-Vendor Links: The detection of employees who are undisclosed directors of active suppliers.
• Syndicate Behaviour: finding several individuals with shared, not-so-obvious characteristics such as telephone numbers or e-mail addresses.
• Hidden Ownership: Stripping away various ownership tiers to identify Ultimate Beneficial Owners, who may be Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs) or Sanctioned Parties.

J-Cred is “Engineered for Compliance. Intelligence for Action.“

We understand that, within the financial industry, innovation must not occur at the expense of compliance. Trust is our currency.

KTO Digital (Pty) Ltd is registered with the National Credit Regulator as a credit bureau (Registration number: NCRCB61) in the categories of both Credit Bureau Re-seller and Niche Bureau (Value-Added Reseller).

This dual classification is fully compliant with the National Credit Act 34 of 2005 and the regulations outlined, and is recognised by the South African Credit and Risk Reporting Association (SACRRA) and the Credit Bureau Association (CBA), of which we are a member. In terms of these registrations, we maintain formal Reseller and Data Access Agreements with our data suppliers.

The Nice Advantage

Being a “Niche Bureau” isn’t about being small; it’s about being specialised. It allows us to move faster, integrate deeper, and build bespoke solutions like our Conflict of Interest engine.

For the professional tasked with managing risk and ensuring compliance, J-Cred offers a single, consolidated view of risk. We combine the regulatory robustness of a registered bureau with the forensic power of modern technology. We don’t just give you a report; we give you the intelligence to make decisions with absolute confidence.

Ready to make the connections others miss?

Don’t let hidden risks undermine your governance framework. Experience how J-Cred’s Identity Intelligence can transform your Due Diligence and Compliance processes.