WTF is KYC & AML? (And why it’s important AF for coworking spaces) with Jeannine van der Linden

Welcome to the another recorded episode of Community Ops, where we invite an expert to deep-dive into a topic plaguing thoughts and forums across the coworking world.

Deep-dive: Table of Contents

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A bit of background.

As more and more large corporations, small businesses, remote workers, the self employed, and freelancers of all kinds look towards coworking and business communities – unfortunately, so do malicious individuals and organisations. 

Not only could bad actors disrupt these communities and their membership experiences, but they could also land community operators in hot water with the police or even intelligence agencies, both locally and internationally. 

In this session we discussed:

  • AML and KYC, 
  • what the heck they mean, 
  • and why they may be important AF to all community operators everywhere.

My guest today is Jeanine van der Linden, who not only runs De Kamer (a growing network of coworking spaces in the Netherlands) and plays a pivotal role in organisations like the European Coworking Assembly and Open Coworking, but is also an included Ambassador.

Not only is Jeannine known lovingly as the “old hippie of coworking“, but she’s also known for having the biggest heart in the industry for her work thanklessly championing causes that strive for the improvement of diversity, inclusion, accessibility, collaboration and sustainability across the sector.

The 'ultra-light' summary.

We’d recommend jumping straight to the video or audio versions, they’re full of great insights.

  • Jeannine has run De Kamer for 10 years now.
  • Jeannine is also the longest sitting director of the global coworking non-profit behind coworking.com, coworking.org and more.
  • Jeannine is also a director of the European Coworking Assembly.
  • Jeannine practiced law (as a litigator) in the US before immigrating to the Netherlands.
  • Whilst running De Kamer, Jeannine had a multi-year and very expensive 'fail' with regards to AML/KYC checks on her coworking members.
  • KYC means 'Know your client'
  • AML means 'Anti Money Laundering'
  • Collectively AML & KYC refer to internationally agreed steps and protocols that should be undertaken by businesses in 'infrastructure' sectors to prevent the enabling of organizations involved with (but not limited to) money laundering, white washing, fraud, terrorism financing and human traficking.
  • "Our job is to know what the risks are, be alert to those risks and tell somebody when they think something is happening in order to protect the rest of society, from all of those things"
  • Tech has enabled millions of businesses, but coworking spaces have not yet caught up with how potential members are assessed.
  • Even pre-pandemic, assessing 'community fit' led to often unconscious biases or presumptions.
  • And on the flip-side, most humans aren't very good at spotting potentially malicious actors in-person, let alone online.
  • Aligning the goals of onboarding and compliance leads to a stronger and more trusting business community.
  • Essentially - for people: you need to confirm the identity of the person you're dealing with (ie that they are who they say they are)
  • Essentially - for businesses: you need to confirm that it exists, what sector it's in, and who else is involved with managing/running the business.
  • Some business sectors are seen as high-risk, because they're used more often to provide cover to other types of illegal operations.
  • From her 'joyous experience' having the "biggest fail" in AML/KYC and coworking, Jeannine understood that soon every coworking space would need to explore hiring or setting up processes for compliance, onboarding, and tracking of statuses.
  • It was also surreal that whilst banks could access huge databases to verify individuals and businesses, coworking spaces could not. Even if they both were expected to perform the same checks.
  • The first iteration of cowork.tools is a partnership between the European Coworking Assembly and a financial services provider to tackle the 3 compliance and regulatory challanges for the industry.

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