NorthRow

AML checks for estate agents

Instantly reduce risk with seamless AML checks for estate agents

NorthRow, a certified IDSP under the UK Government’s Digital Identity & Attributes Trust Framework, ensures secure, compliant digital onboarding with support for 220+ jurisdictions, 13,000 documents, and 85% verification accuracy.

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Coverage
estate agents new client alert

Join estate agents like Knight Frank, Landmark and Westfield who are successfully verifying every new client onboard.

The biggest AML challenges for estate agents

REAL ESTATE AS A TARGET FOR MONEY LAUNDERING

Regulatory measures such as the U.S. GTOs require identifying beneficial owners in cash transactions.

EXPANDED REPORTING OBLIGATIONS

Proposals to broaden AML reporting to include all-cash transactions are under consideration.​

TECHNOLOGY AND RESOURCE CONSTRAINTS

Many estate agents lack the tools to meet strict AML requirements, hindering due diligence.

RISING COSTS OF COMPLIANCE

Compliance costs, such as those for researching beneficial ownership, are a significant concern. 

INCREASED REGULATORY PENALTIES

Agencies like FinCEN and the FATF are pushing for stronger penalties and expanded regulatory frameworks.

LEGAL AND REGULATORY CHALLENGES

Rising commission lawsuits and navigating complex regulatory landscapes add further strain on brokerages.

409,265

AML checks were conducted in Q1 2024

250+

recent fines issued by the HMRC

£1.6 M

 

£88 BN

is laundered annually in the UK

£12.9 BN

is the UK estate agency sector’s value

How NorthRow helps

Elevating estate agent’s first line of defence against fraud with seamless identity verification

NorthRow enables estate agents to quickly verify individuals and businesses, ensuring client identities are authentic while protecting against fraudsters and financial crime.

Speed meets security with fast and secure onboarding

Real-time AML checks provide results in seconds, allowing estate agents to onboard clients quickly, securely, and in compliance while mitigating risk and ensuring legitimacy.

Reduce abandonment rates and improve customer journeys

Improve customer satisfaction by reducing friction and creating a smoother experience, ultimately leading to lower abandonment rates, ensuring clients are engaged and onboarded quickly. 

Safeguard your brand by meeting compliance standards

Meeting compliance requirements not only protects your company from reputational damage but also prevents costly penalties, helping to maintain trust with clients.

estate agent

The real crux of the matter, is verification – everyone would agree that in order for beneficial ownership registers to be worth their sort, the information there has to be completely accurate and up to date. However, it’s no easy task to make sure that that information satisfies those criteria.

estate agent expert

Anton Moiseienko

Research Fellow at Royal United Services Institute

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UBO Clarity

Tackle complex corporate structures with KYB verification

Efficient onboarding for estate agents and property developers, ensuring compliance with KYB and AML through screening of financial, shareholder, and UBO details.

KYB verification
Peps and sanctions
Global Coverage

Screen against sanctions and global watchlists

WorkStation simplifies AML compliance by screening PEPs, sanctions, and adverse media in real time across multiple global data sources.

Regulatory Assurance

Achieve regulatory compliance with robust KYC verification processes

Reduce costly manual AML checks for your estate agency with a single platform to electronically verify your customers in real-time.

payments case management for compliance

Impact in numbers: elevating compliance for estate agents

We bring together global market-leading data sources and verification technologies into a single, simple interface, accessible anywhere, any time.

< 4%

Abandonment rate

220+

Jurisdictions

500m+

Entities available

13,000

Documents supported

1.5m

Daily news articles

< 2%

False positive rate

Automated compliance assurance

Leverage automation to minimise human error, ensure compliance with evolving financial regulations, and maintain a consistent, audit-ready approach.

Prevent fraud risk

Fight fraud with identity checks and ongoing screening against global watchlists, reducing fraudulent risk and supporting regulatory compliance.

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High-risk client scrutiny

Conduct in-depth checks on high-risk clients, focusing on their background and business activities – this additional scrutiny helps prevent money laundering.

architecture
knight frank

Making a positive change towards Knight Frank’s client onboarding, improving cost and time.

NorthRow’s digital transformation of Knight Frank’s client compliance process has seen their onboarding time accelerate, offering clients a friction-free experience whilst meeting their compliance obligations.

Read their story

Estate agent FAQs

For all of your burning questions, take a look at our FAQs. Can’t find the answer to your question? Feel free to contact us directly and we’ll be happy to help.
What data providers do you use?

NorthRow integrates with lots of renowned global data providers, corporate registries and premium data sources, providing unrivalled access to the data your business needs.

Our key data providers are as follows:

Dun & Bradstreet who are leading company data and UBO database specialists, featuring over 500 million global company entities.

Lexis Nexis is our core provider of UK identity and address validation data, such as credit reference agency and electoral register data.

Acuris (often referred to as C6), is our core provider of risk data. Specifically for PEPs, sanctions and adverse media.

Creditsafe is our supplier for KYB/company data. Often used for corporate ownership and structure information. This includes company directors, shareholders and other interested parties as well as where a company is based and its business activities to help support identification of UBOs.

More information can be be found here.

What do you do with our data?
At NorthRow we take security very seriously, we adhere to the highest, rigorous standards for data, privacy and security compliance. The data you send us is only used to verify your client’s identities and businesses. We never use it for any other purpose. We send it to third parties to complete the checks, and we can share our list of sub-processors with you so that you have full transparency of how your data is used.
Where is our data held?
Our products are tested continuously throughout our development process by a team of internal QA engineers. In addition to the application testing we regularly scan for vulnerabilities using third party services and undertake annual detailed penetration testing. We continually monitor new vulnerabilities and proactively work to ensure that we are protected.
How do you test your services?
Our products are tested continuously throughout our development process by a team of internal QA engineers. In addition to the application testing we regularly scan for vulnerabilities using third party services and undertake annual detailed penetration testing. We continually monitor new vulnerabilities and proactively work to ensure that we are protected.
What about service availability?
NorthRow makes use of the Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure to ensure we do not have a single point of failure in our architecture. All the data we hold and the services we provide are backed up at regular intervals to protect against disruption or loss of data.
What support is included?

From the moment we work together we hold your hand throughout the implementation process and continue through to ‘go live’.

Excellent customer service and continued support are all part of partnering with NorthRow. You can always email our support team on support@northrow.com if you have any queries.

All Premium and Enterprise package customers receive a dedicated account manager who will keep in touch to ensure you get the most out of our software.

How fast can I be up and running?
Typically, we get our clients live within 14 days of them signing a contract.

We’ve worked with hundreds of regulated businesses. Let’s work together.

Book your free demo of our ID&V, KYC, KYB, and AML compliance solution and discover how we’ve turned compliance into a competitive advantage for companies like Knight Frank, CloudPay, and Yorkshire Building Society.

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