(Excerpt featured below. To read full report, go to: https://the-cfo.io/2025/06/17/real-time-payments-are-testing-the-limits-of-compliance/)

Reported by Marina Mouka

Rocio Suarez has spent years thinking about what happens when regulations shift faster than systems can adapt. As Director of Financial Crime Compliance at LexisNexis Risk Solutions, she advises financial institutions across Europe on how to stay aligned with anti-money laundering rules, counter-terrorist financing policies, and customer due diligence standards.

Speaking with The CFO at the sidelines Money20/20 Europe in Amsterdam, Suarez was clear on one thing. The acceleration of payments infrastructure, particularly in Europe, is placing compliance teams under strain.

Real-time payments have become a business imperative. But the systems designed to manage financial crime risk were not built for this level of speed.

“Instant payments are being positioned as the new standard,” she said. “But many institutions are still trying to understand what that means for compliance. Processing a transaction in under ten seconds leaves very little room for traditional checks.”

Her concern is well-founded. The European Commission’s proposal on instant credit transfers will require euro transactions to be executed within seconds, twenty-four hours a day. This raises practical questions about how institutions will monitor for fraud or sanctions breaches without slowing down the process.

According to Suarez, the answer lies in smarter infrastructure. She believes that financial crime prevention must evolve from a linear process into something more dynamic. Instead of relying on isolated checkpoints, institutions need systems that assess customer risk in real time and adjust to new information as it becomes available.

One idea gaining traction is perpetual KYC. Rather than verifying a customer at onboarding and revisiting their profile every few years, institutions would maintain a continuously updated picture of risk.

Suarez supports the concept, not as a technological trend, but as a necessary shift in how financial institutions understand the people and businesses they serve.

“Perpetual KYC allows institutions to react more intelligently,” she said. “You can start to integrate different pieces of information across the business and move away from fragmented controls. It’s not just about compliance. It’s about knowing who you are doing business with at all times.”