Accuity Insights Blog

The trend towards instant payments is accelerating – but so too are incidences of financial crime. Innovation in payments screening must keep pace with the sector’s transformation if the goal of safe, secure real-time payments is to be achieved.

In the current regulatory landscape, trade companies that facilitate the movement of goods don’t have it easy. Regulations dictate how trade should be conducted, the measures that must be taken to ensure security during transportation, and who firms can do business with.

Facebook’s launch of its global digital currency, Libra, is a clear indication that virtual or crypto currencies are entering the mainstream of global finance. Facebook has the user base and technology foundation to create a cryptocurrency, but it must overcome its own challenges of trust, security and privacy with consumers, and strict AML/CFT compliance considerations with regulators from around the world.

Financial institutions in the Nordic region have recently made headlines concerning a series of significant money laundering lapses. News stories on this topic have focused on fines but, in the background, firms are making organisational changes, shifting mind-sets and enhancing their systems and processes for the better.

A record number of anti-money laundering (AML) professionals, regulators and vendors recently converged in Hollywood, Florida, for the ACAMS 24th Annual AML & Financial Crime Conference. There was a clear focus on how artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and robotic process automation (RPA), and other advanced technologies, can help in the fight against financial crime.

Deceptive shipping activity is on the rise. OFAC recently updated its advisory documentation to raise awareness of some of the deceptive shipping practices deployed specifically by North Korea to get goods into the country. Organisations involved in trade must be proactive to stay ahead of the risks.

Of all the risks faced by financial institutions, identifying Reputationally Exposed Persons (REPs) in adverse media is the one most likely to fall under the radar. Here are five best practices to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of your adverse media screening program.

Know Your Customer (KYC) due diligence still involves sifting through realms of unstructured data, using manual and repetitive methods; and this is something we are helping the industry overcome. By offering our unrivalled intelligence on global financial institutions via our new Bankers Almanac: KYC API, we aim to help financial institutions with large-scale KYC operations to be more effective, drive efficiency, and make the KYC process more sustainable.

While consumers look forward to a weeklong frenzy of shopping around Black Friday, banks and payment service providers (PSPs) brace for a strain on payment systems and an influx of fraud and criminal activity.

Regulators are getting serious about the quality of sanctions screening programmes. Institutions around the world need to be prepared, advises Sophie Lagouanelle, Head of Solutions at Accuity.

Banks desperately need to meet compliance requirements without slowing down transactions or damaging customer relationships, but KYC screening still involves sorting through huge amounts of unstructured data, using manual and repetitive processes.

These are exciting times in the RegTech space, with so many new innovations to explore and much more on the horizon. We asked Franck Lanher, EMEA Director at Accuity, about his experience of improving financial crime compliance processes with many of the world’s leading financial institutions.