Veteran Cybersecurity Expert Calls for ‘Know Your Agent’ Standards in Digital Finance

Karina Portugal, a seasoned professional with more than a decade of experience in digital identity, fraud mitigation and anti‑money‑laundering initiatives, is urging the financial technology sector to adopt a formal "Know Your Agent" framework. In a recent interview, Portugal highlighted how the current focus on customer verification often overlooks the risks posed by intermediaries and service providers that facilitate transactions on behalf of end users.

Portugal’s career spans roles at major banks, fintech startups and regulatory bodies, where she has overseen the design of identity‑verification systems and the implementation of transaction‑monitoring tools. Drawing on that background, she argues that a systematic assessment of agents—such as payment processors, onboarding platforms and third‑party data aggregators—can close loopholes that criminals exploit to launder proceeds or evade detection.

Industry observers note that while "Know Your Customer" (KYC) regulations are well‑established, comparable standards for agents remain fragmented. Portugal points to incidents where fraud rings have used legitimate‑looking service providers to mask the true origin of funds, thereby slipping past traditional controls. By extending due‑diligence requirements to include agents' ownership structures, compliance histories and risk profiles, she believes the ecosystem can achieve a more resilient defense against illicit activity.

Regulators in several jurisdictions are already contemplating broader obligations for intermediaries, but implementation has been uneven. Portugal suggests that a unified set of guidelines, possibly coordinated through existing AML bodies such as the Financial Action Task Force, would give firms a clear roadmap and reduce the compliance burden of navigating disparate national rules. She also stresses the importance of technology—particularly AI‑driven risk scoring and shared intelligence platforms—to automate the assessment of agents at scale.

The call for a "Know Your Agent" regime arrives as digital finance continues its rapid expansion, with cross‑border payments, decentralized finance protocols and embedded financial services becoming mainstream. Portugal cautions that without proactive measures, the very channels designed to increase financial inclusion could become conduits for crime. As the conversation gains traction, stakeholders from fintech innovators to legacy banks are expected to weigh in on how best to balance security, innovation and the regulatory overhead of an expanded due‑diligence landscape.