Onboarding Friction for Emerging Markets - Is it Just Me?

Curious if anyone else is running into increased friction with onboarding for brokerages or even prop firms, especially when dealing with entities based in or operating extensively within emerging markets. I've been trying to get set up with a new platform recently, one that offers some interesting niche pairs and better leverage than my current primary, but the KYC/AML process has been an absolute nightmare. Multiple document rejections for what seem like minor formatting issues, requests for utility bills from six months ago, bank statements from accounts I haven't actively used in years – it's becoming a full-time job just to get through the initial hurdles.

It makes me wonder if there's been a significant tightening of compliance across the board, or if it's more indicative of these smaller, perhaps less mature, operations simply having clunkier backend systems. The spreads and liquidity look promising, but if it takes weeks to even get an account open, it severely eats into the value proposition. Anyone have similar experiences, or perhaps insights into why this seems to be getting more challenging rather than less?