GS interviews Worth's Sal Rehmetullah

As the regulatory landscape grows more complex and fraudsters grow more cunning, financial institutions face mounting pressure to modernize how they verify both individual and business identities.

In this Q&A, Sal Rehmetullah, CEO and co-founder of Worth, shares insights into why now is a critical moment for consolidating know your customer (KYC) and know your business (KYB) processes. He explores how integrated platforms and smart automation are reshaping compliance, streamlining onboarding, and turning risk management into a competitive edge for banks and fintechs alike.

1. What pain points are driving financial institutions to consolidate their KYC and KYB processes, and why is now the tipping point for this shift?

Balancing risk, cost, and speed is the key. Financial institutions (FIs) face significant challenges with redundant data input, disparate systems and the risk of oversight lapses. KYC and KYB used to live in separate silos. One for people, one for businesses, but fraud doesn’t respect those lines, and neither should financial institution onboarding processes.

As financial crime becomes more sophisticated, banks cannot afford to treat identity verification as an afterthought. Consolidating know your customer (KYC) and know your business (KYB) is about getting a full picture of who you are doing business with, in real time. The tipping point is now.

Existing methods are outdated, failing to keep pace with the escalating speed of fraudulent actors, increasingly stringent regulatory demands, and customer expectations for a seamless, rapid user experience akin to platforms like Apple.

2. How does an integrated KYC/KYB platform streamline compliance compared to working with multiple vendors—and what impact does this have on onboarding speed and customer experience?

Chasing vendors and reconciling mismatched systems is a compliance nightmare. Every disconnected step is a delay, a risk or a reason for a customer to walk away. A unified platform eliminates redundancy, consolidates data, and reduces the time spent between document collection and decisioning. 

It’s faster and smarter. The customer sees one easy-to-navigate process instead of a confusing back-and-forth, and compliance teams get a full 360-degree view of every applicant. This is how FIs cut onboarding time from weeks to days and turn compliance into a competitive advantage.

3. Regulatory expectations continue to evolve. How can fintechs and financial institutions stay compliant while simplifying internal processes through consolidation?

Fintechs and FIs must evolve with regulation. A consolidated system should be both centralized and adaptable. The right architecture lets you build rules once and apply them everywhere, whether it’s OFAC screening, beneficial ownership checks or new guidance out of FinCEN.

The key is automation with flexibility. When you automate intelligently, you can adjust quickly without retraining your entire staff or rebuilding workflows. And when regulators perform audits, you have the full audit trail in one place.

4. What role does automation or AI play in Worth's approach to unified KYC/KYB, and how does it help reduce false positives and improve accuracy?

Automation eases the compliance strain on the underwriting, onboarding and risk monitoring processes, while AI sharpens the results. At Worth, we use machine learning and real-time data validation to identify risk signals. Our system uses proprietary cross-walking technology that pulls from over 242 million SMB records, tax filings and public sources to cross-check and catch inconsistencies early.

It follows rules, learns from patterns and flags anomalies. That means fewer false positives, fewer manual reviews and faster, more accurate onboarding. You don’t need to slow down to stay compliant. You simply need smarter systems.

5. From your vantage point, how are banks and fintechs balancing innovation in onboarding with the need to protect against financial crime and fraud?

The tension between speed and security is real, and it is solvable. The key is not to bolt on fraud detection at the end, but to embed risk checks from the very first step. This is done by linking risk intelligence to every element of the onboarding journey, from tax identification (TIN) verification to reputational checks and bank account validation.

Clients don’t have to choose between seamless onboarding and strong fraud prevention; they can receive both in a single flow that adapts in real-time to their needs. That’s how I see innovation and compliance working in tandem.

6. Looking ahead, how do you see the future of compliance evolving, and what strategic advantages do you think early adopters of integrated platforms will gain?

Compliance can be secure and accurate without sacrificing speed or efficiency. Real-time, automated compliance will soon be the baseline. Institutions that adopt integrated workflow automation now will reduce costs, accelerate onboarding, and improve the customer experience. Those who wait will fall behind. Those who move now will lead. 


Notice to readers: These are archived articles. Contact information, links and other details may be out of date. We regret any inconvenience.