The Financial Intelligence Centre Act (FICA) plays a crucial role in combatting money laundering and terrorism funding, and compliance is now even more critical after the Financial Action Task Force greylisted South Africa earlier this year.
But, as every business owner knows, FICA compliance is not exactly without friction.
Let's use any local company as an example, Cowrie, for instance.
At any point throughout each financial year, regulators, financial services providers, and auditors will request access to verified documentation that confirms everything from Certification of Incorporation (CM1) to our CEO's cellphone number.
Keeping up-to-date business information is a demanding administrative task, and the harsh reality is that not all businesses can be FICA compliant all the time: it's simply too much to keep current or provide at a moment's notice.
This is why the Cowrie Business Vault is so invaluable to any business.
Because Cowrie eliminates your FICA friction within minutes.
Upload business documentation to your business vault once.
Have it verified with a click.
Give the relevant people access to that information.
That's it; your FICA compliance for the year is then taken care of.
The Cowrie Business Vault provides additional benefits too:
1. No more repeated requests for information.
The people or institutions you’ve given permission can review the information whenever they want and how often they want - without having to ask you for it.
2. Mitigating the threat of Business Email Compromise.
There’s no need to share critical information over unsecured email – documentation can be shared vault to vault or from Cowrie directly into a business system through an API.
3. Providing a single source of truth.
As the information in your vault can be independently verified, interoperable and is stored in one place, you can confidently share your information with any person or business for any purpose.
4. You’ll know exactly who sees your confidential business information.
Once you email your information, you cannot control who that email is potentially forwarded to. Cowrie, however, makes sure that only individuals you designate will be able to view your information.
5. Everything is all in one place and under your control.
Create multiple Cowrie Business Vaults under a single profile and control the information of multiple businesses from a single point that’s highly secured, permanently available and accessible anywhere.
6. Compliance becomes automated.
Request any FICA-necessary information from industry bodies, service providers or businesses and add it to your business vault with a click. And once it’s there, it’s available to anyone with permission to access your vault.
7. Auto-complete information requests.
Set documents or versions as auto-complete items, and Cowrie will prepopulate your information requests. The more you use your Cowrie Business Vault, the less time you’ll spend filling out forms.
Let us help you set up your Cowrie account today.
You don't even have to upload anything yourself; give an employee administrator rights to your company's Cowrie profile, and they can upload all the necessary documentation as soon as it's available.
Contact support@cowrie.world now to arrange a demonstration or get in-person tutorials and help setting up your Cowrie profile.