By Legal Futures Associate Kord [1]
AML compliance, in 2026, is no longer just about checks. It’s also about connections.
Knowing who the client is, knowing where their money has come from, and knowing where it will be held. These aren’t three separate checks. They should all live in the same place, on the same record, and on the same workflow.
But for many firms that connection does not exist. It sits on three or four systems, each one handling a different aspect of onboarding and compliance.
However, recent SRA interventions and the government’s latest Fraud Strategy suggest that kind of compliance—demonstrating that the identity verified at the start of the relationship is the same as the identity behind the payment—will become increasingly scrutinised as the regulatory regime shifts towards the FCA.
Kord was built around the joined-up workflow regulators are starting to expect.
All-in-one workflow
A buyer in a property transaction reaches a firm through our verification app. Their identity is verified using NFC biometric checks against the chip in their passport, with facial recognition matching the document holder to the live applicant.
The same workflow captures source of funds: clients securely link their accounts, and Kord highlights transaction-level data alongside their own explanations of how the funds were accumulated.
AML, PEPs, and sanctions screening run in parallel.
When the time comes to receive the buyer’s funds, those funds do not arrive into the firm’s own client account. They arrive into Kord’s own custody accounts, a regulated third-party managed account, with funds sitting outside the firm’s books.
The identity attached to the inbound payment is the identity already verified at onboarding.
The same record covers all of it: compliance, fee-earners, and finance work from one audit trail, in real time.
Why client money matters
Matters that move the largest sums of client money are the biggest vectors for risk, and therefore the areas the SRA is intervening on most frequently.
In May this year, the SRA closed three law firms in a single week, each with client money at the root of the problem.
A workflow that closes the loop between client identity and client money is increasingly becoming a necessity. As the risk of leaving that gap exposed becomes increasingly clear, lenders, clients, and the regulator will soon begin to expect it as a baseline.
A simple answer
Kord brings client identity, source of funds, AML screening, and the receipt and management of client money into a single platform.
For each client, there’s a single closed loop, a single record, and a single audit trail that proves you’ve done your due diligence across the entire transaction lifecycle.
If you are reassessing how your firm handles client money, or simply tired of joining workflows together across half a dozen vendors, Kord is the answer.
Get in touch with Kord to find out more [2].