The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority is updating its anti-money-laundering rules that apply to the onboarding of clients through digital channels, the better to cope with advances in technology.

The consultative period for the anticipated changes to FINMA's circular on the subject will run until 28 March.

FINMA's Circular 2016/7, entitled “Video and online identification,” came into force almost two years ago and it seems to be working, but new ways of misusing the onboarding process have emerged in the meantime. FINMA wants to drop the provision regarding the single-use password (TAN) from the video identification process. Instead, it wants every firm to check at least three randomly selected visual security features of identifying documents. For online identification, FINMA no longer wants to insist on a transfer from a bank in Switzerland; a transfer from a bank in any country that is a member of the Financial Action Task Force will do.

The regulator also wants to add a new security measure called 'liveness detection' to banks' photograph-checking policies. In biometric systems, according to the Encyclopedia of Biometrics, the goal of liveness testing is to find out whether a piece of physiological information comes from the authorised, live person who is present at the time of capture. However, it is not difficult to 'spoof' biometric devices through fake fingers, high resolution images or video, contact lenses, etc. Medical measurements such as pulse oximetry, electrocardiograms or odour, can reduce this problem but cannot eradicate it.