How FDL complete their source of funds checks in minutes with Amiqus

• FDL (Fords Daly Legal) is a fast growing solicitors and estate agency
• Using Amiqus’ banking information check, FDL have reduced the time it takes to complete their source of funds and source of wealth checks from days to minutes
• FDL’s clients can now submit all their banking information in less than 3 minutes
• It took FDL less than 24 hours to get set up with and start using the check
• During a two-month trial of Amiqus banking information, FDL clients completed 99% of checks successfully

Meet Lauren

We asked Lauren Daly, a director at FDL, about how Amiqus is helping them to reduce their administrative burden, future-proof their business and provide the excellent remote experience their clients now expect.
After completing her two-year traineeship with Maclay Murray and Spens LLP (now Dentons), Lauren Daly joined FDL. As a director and partner, Lauren mainly deals with residential conveyancing and commercial leasing. She is also responsible for ensuring her firm stays compliant with AML regulations and the Law Society’s practice rules.

The considerable regulatory burden on smaller firms

“The regulatory burden on us has continued to increase over the last decade. Sometimes it can be hard for clients to understand, because they might remember purchasing a house a long time ago and not having to provide as much personal information. I explain to them though that, if for any reason funds have been obtained illicitly, and we carry out the transaction, it’s us – the lawyers – who face very real consequences. That’s why we need to know where the money has come from, before we can advise on how a sale or purchase can go ahead.

“After taking time to look into what open banking was, how it compliments remote identity verification, and realising how much time our team spent on checking client source of wealth and source of funds checks, I thought I would reach out to Amiqus on Twitter.

“As it turned out, Amiqus was ready to test its new banking information check which uses FCA regulated open banking technology. Within 24-hours of our call, banking information had been enabled within our Amiqus account and we literally hit the ground running with every single client.”

We can now identify financial transactions instantly

“It was one of our directors, who did the very first banking information check. It was a company purchase, so the transaction was a little bit more complex, as the money was coming from both business and personal sources. My colleague couldn’t believe he was able to get all the initial checks completed the same day. Once they were complete, we could get on with all the conveyancing and legal work.

“Amiqus got back in touch after the trial period and asked if we’d like to continue using banking information? The answer was absolutely yes because it made things so much easier. We discussed how we felt banking information would help integrate our workflow and improve what we were currently doing. Now, a significant part of that process is much better than it was.

“For example, in the case of someone being gifted £10,000 pounds from their mum to buy a house in February, we were able to credit the amount and identify the transaction instantly through accessing their banking information, rather than having the client either emailing us or hand in a 20-page document, which we would have had to manually work through to find the money.”

Clients are now asking for open banking

“Banking information has allowed us to work with clients quicker; identify what we need and request things sooner. We can identify where we think the wealth has come from and request X, Y and Z from the client to allow the purchase to go ahead more quickly and smoothly. Generally, everyone has been happy to get on board which has been great.

“I’ve certainly had positive feedback from clients. Quite a lot of my clients have said that they already use open banking technology. If this was, for example, a year or so ago clients might have been a bit worried about giving access to their accounts, but we now have clients asking: “Can you send me another link to do it through open banking?”, because it’s easier for them as well as for us and more secure than the alternatives. We’ve not had any kind of negative feedback.”

It’s helped us to sleep at night

“As a partner where the buck stops with you, I can’t express what it’s like to have the ability to be able to do what we’re doing through Amiqus and know that, by doing so, we’re staying compliant. It has helped us to sleep at night because we’re no longer worrying about whether a client has returned their documentation or not.

We’re in a better position to grow

“Thinking back to the way that we did it before just seems archaic now. We’re going digital with everything and I think, if you’re not doing this now then you’re going to fall behind as a legal business because things are changing all the time.

“I also think it’s important for smaller businesses, who might not realise that they can access or need the same solutions as bigger firms, to see what we are doing at FDL and how using Amiqus has made our lives easier and, most importantly, our business more compliant.

“We now also use Clio for our case management, which Amiqus integrates with: helping us to save time and focus on how we grow the firm; on how we can provide exceptional client service, no matter the circumstances, and on how we can continue to contribute to our community as an employer by, for example, employing the only three accredited paralegals in our area.”