For many companies, it’s essential that Know Your Customer (KYC) checks are done as quickly as possible, avoiding any delay to onboarding new customers and building relationships. However, with fraud rates in the UK increasing, precision is just as important. Speed must go hand in hand with accuracy.
The annual Fraudscape report for 2025 revealed 421,000 cases of fraud filed to the National Fraud Database (NFD) in 2024 – a 13% increase and the highest number on record.
To address this unsettling trend, steps are being taken by the financial services sector to decrease fraud, particularly as insurers and lenders comply with KYC regulation. Location data is playing an increasingly central role in this effort, helping organisations to strengthen KYC processes, identify inconsistencies, and reduce exposure to fraud, all while enabling a smooth customer experience.
Navigating compliance challenges
With KYC being a core part of retail banks and insurance companies’ anti-fraud activity, it’s essential this activity is done as efficiently and accurately as possible. It’s important for these organisations to remain compliant with the regulations set out by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), to avoid facing fines, reputational damage, or licence forfeiture.
As part of the KYC process, the Customer Identification Program (CIP) acts as an initial important component to the data collection process, requiring financial institutions to collect essential information of their customers, such as addresses. But issues such as standardising address data in areas with weak infrastructure, inconsistent addressing formats, or outdated information, can lead to fragmented data and hinder an institution’s ability to remain compliant.
Filling in the gaps
Verifying a customer with poor address data is like putting together a puzzle with missing pieces.
For financial institutions, this offers risk and delayed onboarding, leaving institutions vulnerable to fraud. Location data helps fill in those gaps, giving verified address information and the reassurance that customers are who they say they are.
OS address data links over 40 million properties throughout Great Britain and Northern Ireland to accurate geographic coordinates. Each property is assigned a Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN), an identifier that is unique to each individual property – for example, each flat in a block of flats will have its own UPRN – to help avoid duplication and confusion. The data is updated daily, giving institutions the confidence that they are working with the right information.
This trusted dataset can act as a single source of truth for address collection and storage, reducing manual entry, avoiding errors, and improving efficiency with day-to-day processes.
The value of location data still extends beyond the CIP. Centralising the addressing information means that one source can be used across the business, and can help match customer addresses across different divisions such as underwriting, claims, marketing, and customer services or brands in the group. This reduces fragmentation, supports compliance, and ensures teams are working with consistent information.
Finally, with trusted data comes a stronger relationship between provider and customer. By using datasets such as OS NGD addressing data, businesses can offer personalised services. For example, they can provide vouchers for frequently visited shops by geocoding bank transactions. This personal touch improves the customer experience and helps build long-term loyalty.
Fighting fraud with location intelligence
The digitisation of the financial sector, combined with increasingly sophisticated criminal tactics, means that threats of fraud to insurance providers and retail banks have grown significantly. These institutions must match that threat by implementing equally sophisticated measures. KYC compliance acts as a primary defence against illicit activity, and by leveraging the power of OS data, businesses can stay secure while ensuring they meet the requirements set out by the FCA.
With artificial intelligence (AI) now part of everyday operations, many financial institutions may feel that keeping their operations and their customers safe is becoming more difficult. As the sector continues to evolve, so must the tools and processes behind it, and how organisations respond during this period of transformation will define their resilience.
By working with an OS Partner to leverage OS data, businesses can build confidence in their KYC processes and fill gaps that traditional verification methods often miss. With trusted customer verification workflows in place, institutions can deliver smoother, faster onboarding, and develop trust throughout the customer journey.
Find out more about how OS data can help you make decisions with confidence by visiting our retail banking support page, where you can get in touch with the OS team to find the best Partner for you.
