“The theory of multiple discovery holds that independent people tend to make the same breakthroughs almost simultaneously. Alexander Graham Bell is widely credited as the inventor of the telephone, but he was beaten to the punch years before by Italian immigrant Antonio Meucci and narrowly edged out another inventor, Elisha Gray, who went to the patent office on the same day in 1876. Three different doctors developed polio vaccines, and Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz separately drummed up calculus in the 17th century.
This phenomenon helps explain how the financial industry hive mind has landed on a common solution to the unwieldy process of vetting customers' identities. In an effort to help banks manage compliance with know-your-customer rules and other regulations, multiple organizations are launching centralized registries that store, authenticate and share corporate clients' information.”
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