
Effective due diligence is crucial for managing risk and ensuring compliance in business transactions. It involves verifying the accuracy of information and identifying potential red flags.
To create an enhanced due diligence checklist, start by identifying the key risks associated with the transaction, such as regulatory compliance and reputational risk. This will help you tailor your checklist to address specific areas of concern.
Conduct thorough research on the company's history, including any past controversies or financial difficulties. This can be done by reviewing public records, news articles, and other publicly available information.
A comprehensive enhanced due diligence checklist should also include a review of the company's governance structure, including its board of directors and management team. This can help identify potential conflicts of interest or other governance issues.
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What Is Enhanced Due Diligence?
Enhanced Due Diligence is a critical extension of the due diligence process, specifically designed for higher-risk clientele. It involves a deeper level of scrutiny to mitigate associated risks.
This level of scrutiny is predominantly reserved for customers or transactions that pose a higher risk. Businesses and financial institutions can systematically navigate through the various elements involved in the due diligence process by following an Enhanced Due Diligence checklist.
The primary objectives of Enhanced Due Diligence are to mitigate associated risks and ensure regulatory compliance. By doing so, businesses and financial institutions can enhance the effectiveness and integrity of risk assessments.
Enhanced Due Diligence is a comprehensive approach that requires a thorough assessment of higher-risk customers or transactions. It serves as a critical component of the due diligence process to ensure that no critical aspect is overlooked.
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Purpose and Benefits
The Enhanced Due Diligence checklist is a streamlined roadmap that enhances efficiency and reduces errors or omissions in the due diligence process.
It offers a systematic approach, especially crucial for intricate transactions or partnerships with multifaceted considerations.
This structured approach is pivotal in enhancing the accuracy and integrity of risk assessments.
The checklist aids in identifying and mitigating potential risks associated with higher-risk clients or transactions, ensuring compliance with regulations and safeguarding against legal, financial, and reputational risks.
Comprehensive risk assessment is paramount within the EDD framework, involving an in-depth analysis of various aspects including the nature of the business, source of funds, transaction history, and potential political exposure.
By employing the checklist, businesses can systematically navigate through these critical elements, leaving no room for oversight.
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Factors to Consider
When conducting enhanced due diligence, it's essential to consider the following factors.
The complexity of the business model is a crucial factor to consider. This includes understanding the company's products or services, target market, and revenue streams.
A thorough review of the company's financial statements is necessary to assess its financial health. This should include a review of the balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statement.
The company's management team and their experience in the industry are also important factors to consider. This includes their track record of success and any relevant qualifications or certifications.
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The company's risk profile is a critical factor to consider. This includes assessing the potential risks associated with the business, such as market risks, operational risks, and regulatory risks.
The company's compliance with relevant laws and regulations is also essential to consider. This includes a review of the company's policies and procedures to ensure they are compliant with relevant laws and regulations.
The company's reputation and brand image are also important factors to consider. This includes assessing the company's online presence and reputation, as well as any potential risks associated with its brand image.
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A. Customer Factors:
Analyzing the Customer's Profile and Background is crucial in enhanced due diligence. This involves collecting comprehensive data about the customer or business, including their name, aliases, date of birth or business commencement date, nationality or operating jurisdiction, address, and contact details.
Identifying unusual or high-risk customer behaviors is also essential. This can include complex business structures, substantial financial transactions, or associations with higher-risk jurisdictions.
For more insights, see: Kyc Customer Due Diligence
To evaluate the nature of the business relationship, you should consider the purpose of the business or the customer's financial activities, such as the type of project and industry.
Here are some key factors to consider when evaluating the customer's profile and background:
By considering these customer factors, you can ensure a thorough assessment of higher-risk customers or transactions and identify potential risks associated with money laundering, financial crimes, and other illicit activities.
Geographical Factors
When conducting enhanced due diligence, geographical factors play a significant role in assessing risk. Understanding these factors is crucial for identifying potential issues.
Assessing the risk associated with specific geographical locations is essential. This involves evaluating factors such as local laws, regulations, and cultural norms.
Regional compliance and regulatory variations can significantly impact business operations. For example, laws and regulations regarding data protection, labor, and environmental issues can differ greatly from one region to another.
Adapting EDD strategies for different geographic areas is necessary for effective risk management. This requires a deep understanding of local conditions and regulations.
Here are some key geographical factors to consider:
- Assessing the risk associated with specific geographical locations
- Understanding regional compliance and regulatory variations
- Adapting EDD strategies for different geographic areas
External Factors:
Incorporating external data sources is crucial for a comprehensive enhanced due diligence (EDD) process.
You can leverage third-party services to augment your due diligence efforts. Utilizing these services can provide valuable insights and help you stay on top of your game.
Staying updated on external factors that may impact your business is vital. This includes keeping an eye on market trends, regulatory changes, and other factors that could affect your operations.
Here are some key external factors to consider:
- Incorporating External Data Sources:
- Utilising Third-Party Services:
- Staying Updated on External Factors:
Using the Checklist
Using the checklist is a crucial step in the enhanced due diligence process. It serves as a roadmap to ensure that all necessary steps are taken to assess and mitigate potential risks.
By following a structured approach, you can systematically navigate through critical elements such as the nature of the business, source of funds, and potential political exposure. This helps to identify and mitigate potential risks associated with higher-risk clients or transactions.
To use the checklist effectively, start with a risk-based approach, defining risk assessment parameters and allocating resources based on risk levels. This will help you to prioritize your efforts and focus on the most critical areas.
Here are the key steps to follow:
By following these steps and using the checklist effectively, you can ensure that your enhanced due diligence process is thorough, efficient, and compliant with regulations.
Using the Checklist
The Enhanced Due Diligence checklist is a streamlined roadmap through the due diligence process, enhancing efficiency and reducing the likelihood of errors or omissions. This organised method proves especially crucial when dealing with intricate transactions or partnerships that involve multifaceted considerations.
The checklist typically starts with a risk-based approach, defining risk assessment parameters for Enhanced Due Diligence. This involves allocating resources based on risk levels and aligning EDD efforts with organisational risk tolerance.
To use the checklist effectively, you'll need to gather comprehensive data collection, including customer or business information, nature of activity, source of funds, beneficial ownership, and examine transactions. This will help you assess the types, frequency, and purpose of transactions, including identifying any suspicious or abnormally large transactions for additional investigation.
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Here are the key steps to follow:
By following these steps and using the checklist, you can ensure that your Enhanced Due Diligence process is thorough and effective, ultimately safeguarding against legal, financial, and reputational risks.
Manage Financial Compliance and Risk with OSINT
Using OSINT to manage financial compliance and risk is a game-changer. It's a powerful tool that can help you identify potential risks and mitigate them before they become major issues.
An Enhanced Due Diligence checklist is a must-have in situations involving higher risks, such as dealing with politically exposed persons (PEPs), clients with criminal ties, or businesses in high-risk countries.
Here are some examples of situations where Enhanced Due Diligence is necessary:
- Dealing with PEPs
- Dealing with clients with criminal ties
- Businesses in high-risk countries
- Private banking clients
- Unexplained business relationships
- Complex business structures
- Cash-intensive businesses
- Online platforms with non-face-to-face interactions
OSINT can help you identify potential risks and ensure thorough assessments in these situations. By leveraging AI and joining the dots between Corporate Records, Adverse Media, and Open Source Intelligence, you can stay ahead of potential risks and ensure regulatory compliance.
An Enhanced Due Diligence checklist goes beyond standard due diligence by focusing on higher-risk customers or transactions. It involves more detailed and comprehensive assessments to identify and mitigate potential risks associated with money laundering, financial crimes, and other illicit activities.
By using an Enhanced Due Diligence checklist, you can ensure that thorough due diligence measures are applied to mitigate potential risks and ensure regulatory compliance.
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When to Use a Checklist
You need to use an Enhanced Due Diligence checklist in situations involving higher risks or specific triggering events. This includes high-risk customers, unusual or large transactions, change in customer behavior, and geographic risk.
High-risk customers are those with complex ownership structures, political exposure, or involvement in industries prone to money laundering or financial crime. Unusual or large transactions may also require Enhanced Due Diligence to ensure the legitimacy of the funds involved.
Change in customer behavior, such as sudden increases in transaction volumes or unfamiliar types of transactions, may necessitate EDD. Geographic risk, including transactions involving countries or regions with higher risks of financial crime, economic instability, or regulatory non-compliance, may also warrant EDD.
Broaden your view: Enhanced Customer Due Diligence
Here are some key considerations for determining when Enhanced Due Diligence is necessary:
- High-Risk Customers
- Unusual or Large Transactions
- Change in Customer Behavior
- Geographic Risk
These situations require a more thorough due diligence process to safeguard against potential risks and maintain regulatory compliance. Regular reviews of customer profiles can also trigger the need for EDD if there are changes or activities that raise concerns.
Neotas and Risk Intelligence
Identifying customer risks is a crucial step in Enhanced Due Diligence, and automation can optimize the efficiency of this step by flagging risks.
Standardized criteria are used to review customer applications and transactions to determine if they warrant Enhanced Due Diligence.
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About Neotas
Neotas is a cutting-edge platform that covers a staggering 600Bn+ archived web pages.
This extensive coverage allows users to build a comprehensive picture of a team, helping to identify potential risks and illicit activities.
Neotas' diligence uncovers illicit activities, reducing financial and reputational risk.
With access to 1.8Bn+ court records, users can gain valuable insights into a team's history and potential liabilities.
Neotas also covers 198M+ corporate records, providing a detailed view of a company's structure and operations.
The platform's reach extends to global social media platforms, giving users a window into a team's online presence and potential reputational risks.
Neotas sources information from over 40,000 media sources from more than 100 countries, offering a truly global perspective.
By leveraging this vast amount of data, Neotas Enhanced Due Diligence helps users screen and manage risks with unprecedented accuracy.
Risk Intelligence Software and Advisory Services
Risk Intelligence Software and Advisory Services is a game-changer for businesses looking to stay ahead of the curve.
The Neotas Platform is a powerful tool that covers 600Bn+ archived web pages, giving you a vast amount of data to analyze.
This comprehensive picture of the team is crucial for informed decision-making.
With access to 1.8Bn+ court records, you can anticipate potential risks and take proactive steps to mitigate them.
The platform also includes 198M+ corporate records, providing valuable insights into your business partners and competitors.
Global social media platforms are also covered, allowing you to monitor brand reputation and stay on top of industry trends.
And with 40,000+ Media sources from over 100 countries, you can stay informed about global events and their potential impact on your business.
Automate EDD Risk-Analysis and Identity Verification
The Neotas Platform covers 600Bn+ archived web pages, providing a vast amount of data to aid in risk analysis.
Using automation to flag risks will optimize the efficiency of the risk-analysis process, as mentioned in the step to Identify Customer Risks.
Incode's AI-powered identity verification platform helps you streamline EDD checks by providing automated risk control checks.
You can customize your workflows to set risk levels tailored for specific needs and industries, just like Incode does.
Incode's platform provides automated risk control checks, fraud risk databases, and transaction monitoring tools to aid in EDD risk-analysis.
Choosing the right automation can help you perform enhanced due diligence more efficiently, as stated in Example 5.
Automating EDD risk-analysis and identity verification can help you speed up your workflow and deliver faster service without sacrificing security, just like Incode's platform does.
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Checklist Components
A comprehensive enhanced due diligence checklist is crucial for any business or regulated entity in finance and law. It's a detailed document that outlines the steps to take when verifying customer or business information.
The checklist should start with collecting comprehensive data on the customer or business, including name, aliases, date of birth or business commencement date, nationality or operating jurisdiction, address, and contact details.
Here are the key components of an enhanced due diligence checklist:
- Customer or business information: This includes collecting comprehensive data on the customer or business.
- Nature of activity: This involves a detailed description of the purpose of the business or the customer's financial activities.
- Source of funds: This requires independently verifying where the customer or business funds originated.
- Beneficial ownership: This involves determining the owner and controller of a business through the UBO register.
- Examine transactions: This involves assessing the types, frequency, and purpose of transactions.
- Location: This requires performing a risk assessment with relevance to the customer's geographic position.
- PEPs: This involves identifying any politically exposed persons who are at higher risk of money laundering or financial targeting.
- Personal sanctions: This requires checking for countrywide sanctions and ensuring that individuals involved are not listed on terrorist watchlists.
- Compliance: This involves verifying regulatory and legal compliance to avoid penalties and repercussions.
- Reputation review: This requires completing a media screening to assess the public sentiment and uncover any recent or historical issues.
- Relationships review: This involves examining existing partnerships to provide additional context or highlight risks.
- Ongoing monitoring and record-keeping: This requires establishing a method to continuously oversee the customer or business' financial activities.
By following this checklist, businesses can ensure they are taking the necessary steps to protect themselves from money laundering and other financial crimes.
Checks and Verification
To perform enhanced due diligence, you need to verify customer or business information, which includes collecting comprehensive data such as name, aliases, date of birth or business commencement date, nationality or operating jurisdiction, address, and contact details.
A detailed description of the purpose of the business or the customer's financial activities is also crucial, including the type of project and industry.
You should independently verify where the customer or business funds originated by following the paper trail and verifying any documents with additional checks to ensure they were not profits from crimes.
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To determine beneficial ownership, you need to look up the UBO register, even if it's opaque, to identify who ultimately benefits from the financial activities and ensure they are not associated with criminal groups.
Assessing the types, frequency, and purpose of transactions is also essential, including identifying any suspicious or abnormally large transactions for additional investigation.
Here are the key checks to perform:
- Customer or business information
- Nature of activity
- Source of funds
- Beneficial ownership
- Examine transactions
- Location
- PEPs
- Personal sanctions
- Compliance
- Reputation review
- Relationships review
- Ongoing monitoring and record-keeping
Incode's AI-powered identity verification platform can help streamline EDD checks by providing automated risk control checks, fraud risk databases, and transaction monitoring tools.
Ongoing Monitoring and Reporting
Ongoing monitoring of financial transactions is a crucial step in the due diligence process, as it helps identify potential risks and ensures regulatory compliance.
Initial checks must be followed up with ongoing due diligence, which includes monitoring transactions and periodically confirming and updating customer information. This ensures that any changes or suspicious activity is caught and addressed promptly.
To ensure ongoing monitoring and reporting, you should create a report on your findings and develop a strategy outlining what monitoring procedures need to be implemented going forward. This report should be done for individual clients, and you should also periodically review your procedures as a whole to make ongoing adjustments and improvements.
Ongoing Financial Transaction Monitoring

Ongoing Financial Transaction Monitoring is a crucial step in maintaining the integrity of your financial operations. Initial checks must be followed up with ongoing due diligence.
This includes monitoring transactions as well as periodically confirming and updating customer information. Regularly reviewing and verifying customer data helps prevent potential issues from arising.
Ongoing transaction monitoring helps identify and prevent suspicious activities, ensuring that your financial operations remain secure and compliant.
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Report on Findings and Monitor Ongoing Strategy
Reporting on your findings is a crucial step in the ongoing monitoring process. You should create a report on your findings for each individual client. This report should outline the results of your monitoring procedures.
Developing a strategy for ongoing monitoring is essential to ensure that your procedures remain effective. You should lay out what monitoring procedures need to be implemented going forward. This includes periodically reviewing your procedures as a whole to make ongoing adjustments and improvements.
Protecting Your Business
An Enhanced Due Diligence checklist is a streamlined roadmap that enhances efficiency and reduces errors or omissions in the due diligence process.
This structured approach is pivotal in enhancing the accuracy and integrity of risk assessments, ensuring compliance with regulations and safeguarding against legal, financial, and reputational risks.
By employing the checklist, businesses can systematically navigate through critical elements, leaving no room for oversight.
How AML Compliance Supports Diligence
Protecting your business requires a strong foundation in anti-money laundering (AML) compliance. AML compliance supports diligence by ensuring that financial institutions and businesses thoroughly vet their customers and transactions to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing.
AML compliance is directly correlated with enhanced due diligence (EDD). EDD provides broader and more complex evidence-based verification of identities, relationships, transactions, and red flags of any organization or customer. This enables financial institutions to identify information even where it is obscured and enter into a new relationship with their eyes wide open.
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EDD involves more detailed and comprehensive assessments to identify and mitigate potential risks associated with money laundering, financial crimes, and other illicit activities. This includes verifying the source of funds, beneficial ownership, and examining transactions to assess the types, frequency, and purpose of transactions.
Financial institutions that fail to perform EDD checks risk allowing those committing or associated with money laundering to open an account. This can have devastating reputational effects, driving away current customers and discouraging new prospects, and ultimately leading to significant financial damage.
To ensure AML compliance, financial institutions must regularly screen the UBO register, watchlists, sanctions lists, and PEP lists. This requires ongoing monitoring and record-keeping to continuously oversee the customer or business' financial activities and set up a protocol for record-keeping for compliance, and reporting in case of suspicious behavior or transactions.
Here is a checklist to perform EDD:
- Customer or business information: comprehensive data collection including name, aliases, DOB or business commencement date, nationality or operating jurisdiction, address, and contact details
- Nature of activity: detailed description of the purpose of the business, or the customer’s financial activities, such as type of project and industry
- Source of funds: independently verify where the customer or business funds originated by following the paper trail and verifying any documents with additional checks to ensure they were not profits from crimes
- Beneficial ownership: determine the owner and controller of a business through the UBO register, even where it may be opaque, to identify who ultimately benefits from the financial activities and ensure they are not associated with criminal groups
- Examine transactions: assess the types, frequency, and purpose of transactions including identifying any suspicious or abnormally large transactions for additional investigation
- Location: perform a risk assessment with relevance to the customer’s geographic position, including whether the country is listed on Sanctions or Watchlists lists
- PEPs: identify any politically exposed persons who are at higher risk of money laundering or financial targeting
- Personal sanctions: alongside checking for countrywide sanctions, ensure that the individuals (UBOs) involved are not listed on terrorist watchlists or other databases of a similar nature
- Compliance: verify regulatory and legal compliance to avoid penalties and repercussions on your own business, including AML and CTF in particular
- Reputation review: complete a media screening to assess the public sentiment and uncover any recent or historical issues
- Relationships review: examine existing partnerships to provide additional context or highlight risks that you may have missed
- Ongoing monitoring and record-keeping: establish a method to continuously oversee the customer or business’ financial activities and set up a protocol for record-keeping for compliance, and reporting in case of suspicious behavior or transactions
Protect Your Business with an EDD Checklist
An Enhanced Due Diligence (EDD) checklist is a structured document outlining specific steps and information required for a thorough assessment of higher-risk customers or transactions. It serves as a comprehensive guide to ensure that no critical aspect is overlooked during the due diligence process.
An EDD checklist is a must-have for businesses dealing with higher-risk customers or transactions, such as those involving politically exposed persons (PEPs), clients with criminal ties, or businesses in high-risk countries. It helps ensure thorough assessments and compliance with regulations.
An EDD checklist goes beyond standard due diligence by focusing on higher-risk customers or transactions. It involves more detailed and comprehensive assessments to identify and mitigate potential risks associated with money laundering, financial crimes, and other illicit activities.
The checklist should be used in situations where there is a higher level of risk involved, such as dealing with customers or transactions that have complex structures, substantial financial transactions, or associations with higher-risk jurisdictions. It ensures that thorough due diligence measures are applied to mitigate potential risks and ensure regulatory compliance.
Here are some key steps to include in an EDD checklist:
- Customer or business information: comprehensive data collection including name, aliases, DOB or business commencement date, nationality or operating jurisdiction, address, and contact details
- Nature of activity: detailed description of the purpose of the business, or the customer’s financial activities, such as type of project and industry
- Source of funds: independently verify where the customer or business funds originated by following the paper trail and verifying any documents with additional checks to ensure they were not profits from crimes
- Beneficial ownership: determine the owner and controller of a business through the UBO register, even where it may be opaque, to identify who ultimately benefits from the financial activities and ensure they are not associated with criminal groups
- Examine transactions: assess the types, frequency, and purpose of transactions including identifying any suspicious or abnormally large transactions for additional investigation
- Location: perform a risk assessment with relevance to the customer’s geographic position, including whether the country is listed on Sanctions or Watchlists lists
- PEPs: identify any politically exposed persons who are at higher risk of money laundering or financial targeting
- Personal sanctions: alongside checking for countrywide sanctions, ensure that the individuals (UBOs) involved are not listed on terrorist watchlists or other databases of a similar nature
- Compliance: verify regulatory and legal compliance to avoid penalties and repercussions on your own business, including AML and CTF in particular
- Reputation review: complete a media screening to assess the public sentiment and uncover any recent or historical issues
- Relationships review: examine existing partnerships to provide additional context or highlight risks that you may have missed
- Ongoing monitoring and record-keeping: establish a method to continuously oversee the customer or business’ financial activities and set up a protocol for record-keeping for compliance, and reporting in case of suspicious behaviour or transactions
Definitions and Concepts
Enhanced due diligence is a critical process that involves a thorough examination of a business or individual to assess their risks and potential liabilities. This process is particularly important for companies that are considering mergers and acquisitions.
A key concept in enhanced due diligence is the idea of "red flags", which are warning signs that may indicate a potential risk or issue with a business or individual. Red flags can include everything from financial discrepancies to reputational issues.
In the context of enhanced due diligence, a "Know Your Customer" (KYC) check is a crucial step in verifying the identity and legitimacy of a business or individual. This involves gathering and verifying identification documents, as well as conducting background checks.
Core Diligence: What's the Difference?
Enhanced due diligence is an extension of customer due diligence, requiring a more in-depth investigation. It's not the same as simplified due diligence.
Simplified due diligence is the least complex check, only requiring the identification of the customer or entity, verified with third-party data. This is typically used for lowest-risk customers or entities.
Standard customer due diligence is a moderate level of complexity, requiring the collection of customer identification data. It's used for moderate-risk customers or entities.
Enhanced due diligence, on the other hand, requires all of the standard customer due diligence requirements, plus additional transaction, relationships, and watchlists investigation. This is the most complex check, used for the highest-risk customers or entities.
Here's a quick comparison of the three:
In summary, the level of complexity and investigation required increases from simplified due diligence to standard customer due diligence to enhanced due diligence.
What are EDD and CDD in KYC?
EDD and CDD are both extensions of the Know Your Customer and Know Your Business checks. They enable businesses to learn more about their potential new customers or partners before officially working together.
EDD, or Enhanced Due Diligence, is the strictest form of customer or business due diligence. It requires identification checks, authentication of ownership, and transaction monitoring to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing.
CDD, or Customer Due Diligence, and EDD are used to identify potentially suspicious or high-risk scenarios. Both are essential for regulated entities in finance and law to ensure compliance with regulations.
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EDD is typically used for high-risk customers or businesses, while CDD is used for lower-risk ones. This helps businesses to tailor their due diligence process to the specific needs of each customer or partner.
Trustpair can help upgrade your EDD process, making it easier to protect your business from financial crimes.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the EDD process in KYC?
EDD is a thorough risk assessment process that identifies and evaluates high-risk customers and transactions in Know Your Customer (KYC) protocols. It helps financial institutions mitigate potential risks and ensure compliance with regulatory requirements.
Sources
- https://www.neotas.com/enhanced-due-diligence-checklist/
- https://trustpair.com/blog/enhanced-due-diligence/
- https://ethixbase360.com/enhanced-due-diligence-edd-checklist-for-third-party-risk-management/
- https://rulebook.centralbank.ae/en/rulebook/1611-enhanced-due-diligence-edd-process-legal-entities
- https://incode.com/blog/enhanced-due-diligence-edd-onboarding-high-risk-customers/
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