What is Customer Due Diligence (CDD)?

Customer Due Diligence (CDD) is, at its most basic, verifying a customer's identity and the business in which they are involved to a threshold level of confidence. This involves a number of regulatory obligations:<br/><br/>

Customer Identification - companies must identify their customers by obtaining personal information including name, photo ID, address and birth certification from a reliable and independent source.<br/><br/>

Beneficial Ownership - due diligence should identify beneficial ownership of a company in situations where this is not the client. This process should also verify the control structure of the company.<br/><br/>

Business Relationship - Companies must understand the client business and its purpose.