Sameer Kumandan | Managing Director | SearchWorks | SW360 | mail me |
Compliance has traditionally been associated with paperwork, manual checks and the challenge of proving that the right processes were followed. However, regulatory scrutiny continues to increase. Accountable institutions also face greater expectations around customer due diligence. This raises a more practical question: how can compliance become easier to manage, evidence, and maintain?
As Verification, Onboarding and Compliance Application (VOCA) marks two years in the market, its significance extends beyond the milestone itself. It represents a shift towards making Financial Intelligence Centre Act (FICA) compliance part of everyday business. Instead, businesses can move away from treating compliance as an administrative exercise that happens around their operations.
Building compliance into everyday business
Compliance should not be something businesses have to reconstruct when an audit or regulatory review happens. The evidence should already exist as part of the process. VOCA has helped move that thinking forward by making compliance more practical, traceable and easier to demonstrate.
A key part of this shift is the electronic audit trail. VOCA automatically records verification and compliance activity. Businesses therefore have a clear record of the checks performed and the decisions made. This creates an evidentiary trail that can prove particularly valuable during FIC audits. It also reduces reliance on disparate documents, emails and manually maintained records. As a result, businesses can move away from treating compliance as a collection of individual checks. Instead, they can adopt a more connected process.
Verification reports, risk ratings and supporting information can be accessed through a centralised digital process. The same workflow can also incorporate Know Your Client (KYC) and Know Your Business (KYB) checks, the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) checks and ID verification.
The workflow can further incorporate Politically Exposed Persons (PEP) and sanctions screening. It can also include adverse news checks and account verification. Consequently, businesses can bring multiple compliance activities into one connected process.
Compliance as a business enabler
This shift has implications beyond simply meeting regulatory requirements. Automating traditionally manual processes reduces the administrative burden associated with compliance. It also allows organisations to spend less time gathering and reconciling information. They can instead spend more time assessing risk and making informed decisions.
In this context, compliance can become a business enabler rather than simply a regulatory obligation. The concept of compliance as a business enabler places greater emphasis on efficient processes, accessible evidence and informed decision-making.
Making compliance easier does not mean making it less rigorous. It means removing unnecessary friction from the process while creating a stronger record of what has been done. That changes compliance from something that can feel retrospective and administrative into something that is built into how the business operates.
This is particularly relevant as South Africa continues to strengthen its approach to anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing following its Financial Action Task Force (FATF) greylisting. Although significant progress has been made, accountable institutions remain under pressure. They must demonstrate that their compliance frameworks are not merely documented. They must also show that businesses actively implement those frameworks and support them with appropriate evidence.
From once-off checks to ongoing risk awareness
VOCA also reflects a broader evolution from once-off verification towards ongoing risk awareness. Its monitoring functionality enables businesses to identify changes to client profiles. These changes can include shifts in PEP and sanctions status. This supports a more continuous approach to due diligence.
This shift represents the most significant measure of VOCA’s two years in the market. The focus therefore extends beyond the technology itself. It also considers how technology can change the way businesses approach and maintain compliance.
The real achievement is not that VOCA has reached a two-year milestone. It is that we are helping change the way businesses approach compliance. When the process is digital, the audit trail is created as you go and the evidence is readily available; compliance becomes less of a burden and more of an integrated part of doing business.
Ultimately, this approach positions compliance as a business enabler by connecting regulatory requirements with everyday operational processes. It also demonstrates how digital workflows can make compliance more practical, traceable and sustainable.
As businesses face continued regulatory scrutiny, compliance as a business enabler can provide a more constructive way to approach these obligations. Rather than treating compliance as paperwork that must be reconstructed when required, organisations can build evidence, accountability and risk awareness directly into their daily operations.
