By Rohan Le Page, Co-Founder, ShareRing
The average Know Your Customer review for a single corporate client now costs $2,598. That is not a typo. That is research from Fenergo, confirmed across multiple industry studies.
For retail banking, the numbers are lower but the volume is brutal. Hundreds of thousands of verifications a year, each one requiring document collection, manual review, database checks, sanctions screening, and ongoing monitoring. The average bank spends $60 million a year on KYC compliance. Some of the majors spend over $500 million.
And the processing times are getting worse, not better. Globally, banks took an average of 95 days to complete a KYC review in 2023, up from 84 the year before.
These are not edge cases. These are the baseline economics of identity verification under current systems. And they are completely unsustainable.
Why KYC costs keep climbing
Three things are driving this.
First, regulations are expanding. Australia’s AML/CTF Tranche 2 just brought lawyers, accountants and real estate agents into the regulated population. The EU’s Anti-Money Laundering Authority is standing up a centralised supervisor for the first time. The UK’s DIATF framework is now statutory. Every major jurisdiction is adding obligations, not removing them.
Second, the threats are evolving. Deepfakes, synthetic identities, and AI-generated documents mean the bar for what counts as reliable verification keeps moving. A 2026 Gartner projection says 30% of organisations will view their existing authentication systems as insufficient to combat deepfake threats. That means re-investment, re-tooling, more cost.
Third, none of it is reusable. That is the structural problem. Every time a client opens an account, switches providers, or engages a new professional services firm, the entire KYC process starts from scratch. The same passport gets scanned. The same biometric gets captured. The same sanctions lists get queried. The same result gets produced. And somebody pays for all of it, again.
The case for reusable KYC
Reusable KYC means a client verifies their identity once, and the result of that verification becomes a portable, cryptographically secured credential that can be shared with any requesting party. No re-verification. No duplicate document uploads. No redundant biometric captures.
The economics are transformative. Research from Mordor Intelligence shows organisations adopting reusable verifiable credentials see onboarding cost reductions of 30 to 50 percent, with repeat verification costs dropping by up to 60 percent.
But the real value is not just cost. It is time. A client who verifies once and shares a credential in seconds is a client who actually completes onboarding. Drop-off rates in financial services KYC remain stubbornly high. Every additional step, every additional day, loses real customers.
What the regulators are saying
The regulatory environment is moving firmly toward reusable, evidence-based identity.
The EU has mandated all Member States to offer at least one EU Digital Identity Wallet to citizens by late 2026 under eIDAS 2.0. The UK’s DIATF 1.0 framework explicitly certifies reusable identity providers. Australia’s AUSTRAC, while expanding obligations under Tranche 2, has endorsed digital verification systems that meet its AML/CTF requirements.
The direction is clear. Regulators want strong verification, but they also want interoperable, privacy-preserving systems that do not require the same data to be collected over and over again. They are building frameworks that reward the reusable model, not the repetitive one.
What we built at ShareRing
ShareRing Me is a reusable digital identity app. A client downloads it, verifies once with document capture, biometric face matching, liveness detection, and a government database check. That verified credential lives on their device, anchored to our blockchain as an immutable audit trail.
Every subsequent verification is a single tap. The requesting business gets a yes or no. No personal data is transferred. No documents are re-uploaded. No biometric data leaves the device.
For businesses operating under AML/CTF obligations, the full compliance stack is built in: PEP screening, sanctions checks, ongoing monitoring, and a 7-year auditable record.
We are DIATF certified in the UK. We are AUSTRAC AML/CTF compliant in Australia. We are ISO 27001 certified. And we deliver verification at 50 to 80 percent lower cost than the major enterprise alternatives.
If your KYC costs are climbing and your onboarding times are getting longer, the answer is not a bigger compliance team. It is a better system.
Related reading
If you are newly regulated under Tranche 2, start with our full compliance breakdown: Lawyers, Accountants and Real Estate Professionals: Get Compliant Before July 1.
To see how reusable KYC works in practice, read the FundedHere Investor KYC case study or the National Commercial Bank of Anguilla case study.
For a side-by-side comparison of identity verification approaches, visit our Compare Us page.
Rohan Le Page is Co-founder of ShareRing. ShareRing Me is AUSTRAC AML/CTF compliant, ARNECC VOI Ready, DIATF certified, and ISO 27001 certified.
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