Customer Due Diligence (CDD) Workshop: Risk-Based Assessment and Regulatory Expectations
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Course Overview
Effective Customer Due Diligence is a cornerstone of strong anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing frameworks and remains a key area of regulatory focus for UK-regulated financial services firms. This interactive half-day workshop is designed for senior compliance and financial crime professionals responsible for designing, overseeing, and challenging CDD frameworks.
The course focuses on how to implement a genuinely risk-based approach to customer due diligence that is proportionate, defensible, and aligned with current UK regulatory expectations and international good practice. Through a practical, workshop-led format, participants apply professional judgement to realistic customer scenarios, prepare customer risk assessments, and build end-to-end onboarding files.
The session examines when standard due diligence is sufficient, when Enhanced Due Diligence is required, and how CDD should interact with sanctions screening, beneficial ownership analysis, and ongoing monitoring. Strong emphasis is placed on evidencing decision-making, senior oversight, and quality assurance, enabling participants to critically assess their firm’s approach and clearly articulate “what good looks like” to regulators, auditors, and Boards.
Learning outcomes
By the end of the session, participants will be able to:
Understand current UK regulatory expectations for CDD and how these are assessed in practice
Apply a genuinely risk-based approach to customer due diligence across different customer types, products, and risk profiles
Determine when standard, simplified, or enhanced due diligence is appropriate and how to justify those decisions
Conduct and document customer risk assessments that are proportionate, consistent, and defensible
Analyse beneficial ownership structures and assess associated financial crime risks
Integrate sanctions screening and ongoing monitoring effectively within the CDD lifecycle
Evidence professional judgement, senior oversight, and challenge within CDD decision-making
Critically assess the quality and effectiveness of existing onboarding and CDD frameworks
Who this course is for
This workshop is designed for professionals with responsibility for CDD and financial crime controls, including:
MLROs and Deputy MLROs
Heads of Compliance and Financial Crime
Senior Compliance and Risk Managers
CDD, EDD, and Onboarding leads
Quality Assurance and Oversight professionals
Senior managers with accountability for AML and CDD
The course is particularly suited to UK-regulated firms seeking to strengthen the robustness, consistency, and defensibility of their CDD frameworks in response to regulatory scrutiny.