Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) regulation are becoming more important to meet the growing demand for financial services as well as the urgent need for greater security and protection from fraud. These procedures are difficult to understand for both financial institutions and businesses. It can be difficult to understand the meaning of all these acronyms. What is KYC? What is AML? How can these practices protect you, your customers and yourself? AML compliance and KYC are legal requirements that companies and banks must comply with in order to avoid being used as financial criminal vehicles. These policies must be strong to stop malicious actors from getting through the net. They include various monitoring and verification procedures. These entities could face severe non-compliance penalties from regulatory agencies if they don’t. Although they are sometimes used interchangeably, the terms actually mean something different. AML and KYC are two different terms. KYC refers to a process, while AML is a complete framework. KYC is an identity verification procedure that ensures customers are authentic. AML refers to the whole set of mechanisms that are used to prevent money laundering and financial crime. KYC is one such mechanism which can be optimized by the usage of an API for KYC verification. This confusion stems from entities not meeting all AML regulations, falsely believing that KYC procedures are sufficient to pass. Although KYC procedures alone are not sufficient, it can be expensive and time-consuming to implement full AML operations. As regulation and demand increase, technology is advancing to meet service provider’s needs. ClearDil.com offers automation via it’s KYC API technology that allows entities to cut down on costs, delays and clerical errors related to manual identity verification. ClearDil’s API for document verification allows service providers to better manage AML budgets, compliance teams, and KYC processes.