Due diligence is an investigation or audit of a person or company to confirm all facts, that might include the review of background information, financial records, before being approved under the citizenship scheme. Due diligence can also apply to individuals, companies, products, services, online activities (social media) and other financial transactions.
Due diligence is at the heart of investor citizenship and residency industry, considered as paramount importance for the Citizenship by investment (CBI) industry, keeping criminals, fraudsters away from abusing passports. Over 90% of work in CBI application processing involve due diligence checks takes atleast 2-3 months for the report, failing which applicants will be refused of citizenship or passport.
Due Diligence Stages
There are three stages of due diligence steps involved to verify facts and information
- Initial due diligence (IDD) – this step is necessary in evaluating what risk is involved in doing business with an entity prior to establishing a relationship and assesses risk at that point in time. This is done by CBI Agents before accepting a client.
- Enhanced Due diligence (EDD) – This applies to high risk persons identified through initial checks. For eg. Politically Exposed persons (PEP)
- Ongoing due diligence (ODD) – this is the process of periodically evaluating each relationship from time to time (eg. every 3 or 5 years)
In the CBI industry, Agents are required to perform initial KYC/ Initial due diligence checks, while governments are required to perform in-depth investigations on high risk persons hiring third party companies.
Award Winning Firms
We have compiled full list of internationally recognised award winning financial due diligence firms offering background checks for the citizenship by investment industry. Agents, Companies, Risk/ compliance officers and Banks can hire services from the following trusted due diligence firms to verify background. These are the best third party firms (in no particular order) specialize in thorough background checks on criminal record, corruption, sanctions, litigation, frozen assets, concealment, KYC/AML money laundering, tax fraud, financial crime and embezzlement, PEPs, police databases etc.
- Exiger – https://www.exiger.com
- Thomson Reuters – http://thomsonreuters.com/
- Sterling Diligence – https://www.sterlingdiligence.com/
- BDO, USA – https://www.bdo.com/
- S-RM Intelligence and Risk Consulting – https://www.s-rminform.com/
- Kroll – https://www.kroll.com
- Wealth-X – http://www.wealthx.com/
- Refinitiv, USA – https://www.refinitiv.com
- London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) – https://lseg.com
- Hilton Global Associates – https://hiltonglobalassociates.com
- Corporate Resolutions Inc, USA – https://www.corporateresolutions.com/
- PriceWaterCoopers (PWC) – https://www.pwc.com
- Paladin Risk Solutions – https://paladinrisksolutions.com/
- Harod Associates – https://harodassociates.com/
- Globe Detective Agency – https://www.globedetective.com
- NFC Global – www.nfcglobal.com
- FACT UK – https://www.fact-uk.org.uk/
- Global Communication Solutions – https://gcspro.net/
Please contact us for more information.
