How do your bankers ask Personal Customers (especially those who open the account with cash), about the nature of their funds, and their expected transaction activity?

We take the sales approach - to better understand your financial needs, we need to ask you a few questions etc.
There is a learning curve with your customers if they are not used to being asked those questions. In that case you can simply say that regulations require the bank to understand the nature of the business and the source of the funds, and then go into the questions.
Experienced personnel can get all the required information just from a chatty conversation.
You will have to see which works for you and your staff/area.

IMHO, when working in branches, CSRs are more confident with checklist and preparation. We have conversations that are drilled into CSRs that go through all our products with good transitions, and during these conversations most of the CDD can be collected and perceived activity.

Give tools to CSRs and make the prepared and confident. But I agree with MagicCity, simply put, "we need to have this information in order for us to have a banking relationship with you"

IMHO - The "we need to have this information" is a much preferred approach rather than "regulations require the bank".

If a customer doesn't want to have an honest conversation with the bank, then I have always preferred they take the hike down the street.

Thanks everyone, for your helpful feedback!

If I could reach out to ask one more question.....how do you ensure that your front line bankers ask the questions of the customer? Is it part of the automated account opening process with required fields to fill in, or a checklist/form of sorts?

I really appreciate the discussion, thanks again!

Holly Gieseke

Our is part of the automated process when the account is opened and they have to fill in the fields after asking questions.

In my past experience working in branches, if a CSR knows that something is not going to be reviewed or sent down for imaging, they will half [censored] it. If you can make it part of required fields in the software you are using, that would ensure they fill it in. Otherwise I would suggest having a checklist they fill in by hand or on computer. When Management reviews signature card for account, they also review checklist.

All depends on your account opening process, who reviews signatures cards, how you image your documents.

Hopefully helped you a little bit or gave you some ideas, have a great thanksgiving

And just make sure someone actually looks at the due diligence questions and answers that are given. There is nothing worse than establishing a series of due diligence questions for applicants and then pay no any attention to what they say.

For example, some of the things I have seen on a NRA due diligence questionnaire:

The account applicant indicates that they do not have a U.S. TIN; however the reason for opening the account is that the bank location is convenient as he works downtown and he also provided the name of his employer.

For applicants who did not provide a U.S. TIN when asked how long they expected to be in the U.S., they replied either indefinitely or forever.

Individuals indicated that they were employed in Mexico while indicating they intended to be in the U.S. indefinitely.