About IMI
IMI is a global commodities trading company that conducts business across multiple jurisdictions and with a wide range of counterparties, including suppliers, customers, vessel owners, and service providers. Supporting these relationships requires a strong focus on compliance, onboarding, and risk management to ensure efficient and responsible operations worldwide.
Kelly Moore, Manager of Compliance & Legal Administration at IMI, is responsible for overseeing counterparty onboarding and KYC programs across the organisation's global trading business. Her responsibilities include coordinating onboarding activities across multiple departments, managing compliance reviews, supporting corporate governance requirements, and ensuring that AML and sanctions screening obligations are met.
The Challenge: Effective Controls, Inefficient Process
Prior to implementing Veritas, IMI's onboarding and KYC programme was effective and well controlled. The challenge was not a deficiency in oversight, but the volume of manual effort required to sustain it. Information was collected through multiple channels, reviewed by various stakeholders, and entered into separate systems. As onboarding activity increased, the administrative workload required to keep records organised, documented, and progressing grew correspondingly.
Historically, IMI managed onboarding and KYC reviews through a combination of internal forms, ERP records, email correspondence, document repositories, sanctions screening tools, and manual review procedures. This approach depended on collecting information from counterparties, validating supporting documentation, coordinating approvals, conducting reviews, and updating records across several platforms. While effective from a compliance standpoint, it required significant coordination and follow up, and as volumes continued to grow, the organisation sought opportunities to streamline these activities without compromising existing controls.
“The challenge was not a lack of oversight, but the amount of time required to maintain it. As our onboarding activity increased, so did the administrative workload associated with keeping everything organized, documented, and moving forward efficiently.” - Kelly Moore, Manager, Compliance & Legal Administration, IMI
Left unaddressed, inefficiencies of this kind carry material risk. Organisations relying on manual, multi-system onboarding processes can experience delays, inconsistent reviews, incomplete records, and limited insight into where counterparties sit within the approval process. Manual activity also increases the likelihood of administrative error and makes it more difficult to demonstrate compliance during audits or regulatory examinations — challenges that become progressively harder to manage as business volumes expand.
Summary of pre-implementation challenges:
- Onboarding and KYC information collected across multiple disconnected channels and systems
- Significant manual coordination required between stakeholders to progress reviews and approvals
- Increasing administrative workload as onboarding volumes grew
- Limited real-time visibility into the status of individual counterparty reviews
- Heightened risk of administrative error and audit preparation burden associated with manual processes
A partnership built around how IMI actually works
IMI selected Lloyd's List Intelligence as its partner based on the collaborative nature of the engagement. Rather than presenting a standard, pre-configured solution, Lloyd's List Intelligence invested time in understanding how IMI's business operates and the specific outcomes the organisation was seeking to achieve, before designing an approach aligned with IMI's onboarding requirements and risk management objectives.
“Rather than presenting a standard solution, they worked closely with us to design an approach that aligned with our onboarding requirements and risk management objectives. Their willingness to collaborate, listen to feedback, and adapt the platform to fit a complex global trading environment set them apart from other providers we evaluated.” - Kelly Moore, Manager, Compliance & Legal Administration, IMI
Following implementation, IMI now manages the full counterparty onboarding lifecycle through a single platform, replacing the previously fragmented combination of forms, correspondence, and disparate systems with one coordinated environment.
Platform capabilities of particular relevance to IMI:
- Centralised onboarding management: Initiation of requests, collection of information, document review, and approval management consolidated within a single platform
- Workflow automation: Automated document collection, notifications, approval routing, and status updates, reducing reliance on manual follow-up
- Configurable workflows: Approval paths and processes tailored to align with IMI's internal governance requirements
- Reporting and status tracking: Improved visibility into the progress of individual counterparty reviews across the onboarding pipeline
- Structured record-keeping: A documented audit trail of supporting evidence, review steps, and approval decisions
Measurable improvements in consistency and efficiency
Since implementation and the commencement of the rollout, IMI has observed measurable improvements in consistency, accountability, and cross-team coordination.
Operational consolidation
Activities previously distributed across multiple systems can now be managed from a single location, providing stakeholders with clearer visibility into responsibilities and the ability to track progress without consulting separate platforms.
Reduction in manual administrative effort
The introduction of automation across document collection, notifications, approval routing, status updates, and reporting has materially reduced the manual follow-up previously required of the compliance team, contributing to a more efficient onboarding experience across the organisation.
Enhanced audit readiness
The implementation of a structured framework for information collection and review documentation has improved consistency across IMI's onboarding activities. The platform maintains a clear record of supporting documentation, review steps, approvals, and decision-making, simplifying verification of completed requirements and strengthening the organisation's audit trail.
Increased confidence in risk assessment
The structured and consistent nature of the review process has improved confidence that counterparties are being assessed in a uniform manner across the organisation, supporting more robust risk management outcomes.
"The platform creates a clear record of supporting documentation, review steps, approvals, and decision making. This makes it easier to verify that requirements have been completed, provides a stronger audit trail, and gives greater confidence that counterparties are being reviewed in a consistent manner.” - Kelly Moore, Manager, Compliance & Legal Administration, IMI
Key outcomes for IMI
- Consolidation of onboarding and KYC activity from multiple disconnected systems into a single platform
- Reduced administrative burden through automated document collection, notifications, and approval routing
- Improved consistency and accountability across onboarding and compliance teams
- Strengthened audit trail supporting regulatory examination and internal governance requirements
- Enhanced visibility into the status of individual counterparty reviews across the onboarding pipeline
- A configurable, scalable onboarding framework capable of supporting continued business growth
- An implementation approach tailored collaboratively to IMI's specific operational requirements
Infospectrum Veritas provides global trading organisations with a single, automated platform to manage the complete counterparty onboarding lifecycle reducing administrative burden while strengthening consistency, accountability, and audit readiness.
Find out how Infospectrum Veritas can support your organisation's onboarding and compliance requirements, today.
