Enhanced Due Diligence (EDD)

Enhanced due diligence is a deeper level of background screening applied to higher-risk clients or applicants, such as politically exposed persons (PEPs), individuals from high-risk jurisdictions, or those with complex or opaque wealth structures. EDD goes beyond standard due diligence checks to include source of wealth verification, deeper adverse media analysis, and potentially on-site visits or third-party intelligence reports. It is a requirement under anti-money laundering regulations in most jurisdictions and is applied routinely in CBI programmes. Financial institutions are legally required to apply EDD in certain defined circumstances.