Enthusiasts of space exploration will be familiar with NASA’s infamous Mariner 1 space probe. Launched in 1962 to great fanfare, within five minutes it had veered off course and had to be destroyed. $80m (quite literally) went up in smoke. The incident investigation later revealed that a single mathematical symbol had been misunderstood by a software developer. This typo led to a navigation error and what science fiction writer Arthur C Clarke termed ‘the most expensive hyphen in history.’

My takeaway from this saga? Security is a weak-link game.

Fortunately, in the aerospace industry at least, we’ve moved on from making aircrafts work to making them safe. However, in lots of organizations, software engineering still has to catch up. As engineers, we need to pay attention to the details to make sure that we catch the ‘typos’. But we also need to take a deeper approach to defense because we know attackers will find and exploit any mistakes we make.

At ComplyAdvantage, we recognize that it’s not enough to have perimeter firewalls, anti-virus and regular penetration tests – although we have implemented all of this. We need to engage in security (and privacy) by design. The first step towards achieving this is to understand the evolving threat environment we’re facing – this includes our attackers’ motivations and capabilities. We can then build security in, from the ground up, to meet these challenges.

As a relatively young company, we benefit from not having to nurse legacy software that was built in a much less complex risk environment. Our software is built to address today’s threats. It has multiple layers of protection, it’s cloud-native, and runs largely in ephemeral, short-lived containers that are regularly recycled and updated, making them harder to attack.

There are a raft of automated measures in place to verify the security of our platform, from code analysis tools and gizmos that check for insecure 3rd party components to various flavors of vulnerability scanners. But you can’t simply automate your way to security. So we provide security training for our engineers, we’re recruiting more security specialists (if you’re interested, we’d love to hear from you) and we’re continually assessing how we can improve our processes.

Despite the relative youth of our rocketship company, we’re big and successful enough to have a mature approach to security – but it’s not enough for us to just say all of this. So as well as penetration testing carried out by CREST registered external testers, we have qualified third-party auditors to check up on us regularly. We’re certified to the international standard for information security, ISO 27001, and we’re looking forward to gaining additional credentials as a demonstration of our continued commitment to keeping our customers’ data safe and our service the best on the market.

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The findings of the investigation, which lasted two years and involved 108 news organizations across 88 countries, have reverberated throughout the global financial system and have sparked a long-overdue conversation about the need to fix what many would call a broken system.

ComplyAdvantage’s COO & CFO, Vatsa Narasimha, recently sat down with BuzzFeed News’ Jason Leopold, the Emmy-nominated senior investigative reporter behind the story to get the behind-the-scenes scoop about how the story came about, what it was like to investigate it and his thoughts on how we move forward from here.

The FinCEN Files consisted of more than 2,500 documents, most of which were files that banks sent to US authorities between 2000–2017. These files raised concerns about what some institutional clients might be doing or who they were affiliated with. Jason, when did you first hear about these files, and under what context?

I’m an investigative journalist, and I depend on sources. I depend on whistleblowers. I depend on a number of different people to provide me with information. It is my duty to protect those individuals when they are revealing waste, fraud and abuse. So, I can speak generally about when we first learned about what became the FinCEN Files. In 2017, I had just started at BuzzFeed News on the investigations team. At that time, Donald Trump had just been inaugurated as president.

There were a number of different investigations that were taking place into alleged election interference involving Russia, and there had been a number of different investigations by Congress into Donald Trump’s financial dealings and anyone who may have dealt with Trump over the years. That investigation expanded to include many different people whose names — honestly, I cannot explain why these names and these entities surfaced. But the Senate Intelligence Committee and a number of different committees within Congress had requested records from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).

They were interested in finding out what this relationship was. My work started early on with looking at individuals like Paul Manafort, Rick Gates and a number of different people who entered into that orbit and looking at their financial dealings. My job was to follow the money and to gain an understanding as to what Congress was doing, one, but also what happens when FinCEN receives these so-called suspicious activity reports?

Without getting into the details, because I can’t, we received a number of these suspicious activity reports. What we found was, on one hand, it had nothing to do, in some instances, with anything related to election interference or Russia. But it did show that banks, major banks, were doing business with some very suspicious characters, and that, essentially, they had been flagging accounts that were suspicious and sending these suspicious activity reports to FinCEN. And that’s pretty much it.

Congress wasn’t interested in this, and that was fascinating to me. They were not interested in these records. They were only interested in one thing: What role did Russia play? What role did these individuals play in financing that? What we found, what was sitting right in front of them, was something that was far more urgent and nefarious. And that was individuals who could be defined as drug traffickers and oligarchs that were moving suspicious funds into banks, banks flagging it, sending reports to Congress, and that was it. Let me give you an example about the first story that we worked on. That involves Paul Manafort.

As everyone is aware, Paul Manafort was convicted of a number of financial crimes. He’s been pardoned, but banks like JPMorgan had been filing these suspicious activity reports on Paul Manafort for years. We’re not talking about flagging suspicious transactions involving a couple of $100,000. We’re talking about tens of millions of dollars of money that they felt were ill-gotten gains that they could not explain. They didn’t know who the beneficial owners were of some companies. Paul Manafort could essentially do business in any way he wanted. HSBC was involved in that.

What we found was that this went back a decade, and they just kept filing these suspicious activity reports. Now, I want to make it very clear that the compliance officers and, in many instances, the banks follow the law. This is what they are required to do. 

FinCEN, however, in some cases, didn’t follow up. Maybe they launched an investigation and shelved it. What we found was that there was something way, way bigger here. It was really fascinating to see how easy it was to move funds through banks, and all the banks had to do if they thought it was suspicious was file a suspicious activity report — and in some instances, maybe hope that FinCEN would ask for additional information, and that sometimes didn’t happen. And that was it.

So, we set out to tell this story, to tell a story about getting into this world of money laundering and, essentially, how easy it is in some cases to move suspicious funds.

And something here, what we exposed, is clearly broken. My mission was to help explain how this has been happening. Without these records, we obviously would not have been able to do so. What stands out from stories about money laundering, alleged money laundering and financial malfeasance over the years is that there’s a lack of disclosure from the government in order to see what the US government or other governments are actually doing.

We’ve seen the Panama Papers. We’ve seen the records that come from the law firms and how individuals and entities are hiding money in tax havens. This is different because these are records from the US government.

Unlike the Panama Papers and others that were published before, these files aren’t from a single institution. This is more from an aggregation of transactions across a lot of the major banks and across geographies because the payment or the transaction is either initiated or it’s going to different geographies. From a process perspective, when did ICIJ get involved? I’ve read that about 400 journalists across 88 countries formed a part of that investigative story. Can you talk a little bit about that process?

At BuzzFeed News, we had a team scrutinizing these records, scrutinizing the data. We knew we had something here. We would see in the data, in the narratives that were prepared, that this was something very, very big. One noteworthy element of this is that the US dollar is the lifeblood of economies, and everyone wants to work with it.

These records, these transactions involved entities around the globe, individuals located all around the world in various countries. We realized that we had something very special here. It was at a journalism data conference that one of my colleagues had met someone from ICIJ and very covertly mentioned, “What would you do if you had this data, and how would you explain it?” That led to some intrigue, and that intrigue led to a conversation. After that, it was just, “Maybe we could partner up and tell a bigger story.”

That was in 2019, I think. We all met secretly in Hamburg for a little conference to go through these records. We realized that this would have far more impact if we worked collaboratively. It’s the largest journalism collaboration ever. What’s very, very, very important here is that the number of journalists who worked on this surpassed the number of people who work at FinCEN.

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We spoke to Charles Delingpole, founder and CEO of ComplyAdvantage, to explore what the Series C extension means for our business, customers, and the fight against financial crime. 

In a sentence, tell us what ComplyAdvantage does.

ComplyAdvantage is the leader in AI-driven financial crime risk data and detection technology, using the world’s only dynamic global risk database of people and companies. 

Why did Goldman Sachs invest in ComplyAdvantage? 

Goldman Sachs shares our diagnosis that tackling financial crime requires AI-driven solutions like those we are providing to more than 500 enterprises in 75 countries already.

Our customer base also includes companies in the Goldman Sachs growth portfolio, which means they’ve seen first-hand how our products can detect money-laundering and related financial crimes, keep compliance teams well informed of rapid regulatory changes, all while reducing operational costs. 

Why are you excited about this investment?

Goldman Sachs is a leading global financial institution, so our partnership represents a fantastic endorsement of our brand. 

I’m looking forward to deepening our relationship with Goldman Sachs and its network, so we can help more companies deliver both growth and business integrity. A core part of our mission is ensuring customers don’t have to choose between the two. 

How will this investment be used?

As our company continues to grow, it’s getting bigger and more complex. That means we need to hire more world class talent capable of managing and scaling our world class software and data.

We’ve made a number of critical executive hires recently, so we’ll be looking to build on this momentum globally at all levels. We’re working to find leaders in their field who can work quickly and independently to build our products and support customers.

One example of this is our plan to hire another 80 engineers in the next 9 months. Ensuring our technology remains at the cutting edge of risk detection requires a sustained, relentless focus on our engineering and product capabilities. 

Why are the solutions ComplyAdvantage offers the future of financial crime and risk detection?

Our hyper-scale anti-money laundering and risk detection solutions do more than just deter financial crime. We’re proud to champion innovation in financial services because it is critical to massive business transformation.

As a result, we see our products helping customers achieve 3 key things: 

• Future proof their operations: Our data is always current, so our customers can access the latest risk and financial crime insights.
• Scale with integrity: Reducing manual effort and obtaining accurate results faster means lower costs.
• Drive limitless growth: Disruption and opportunity don’t have to be constraints. We help our customers to drive limitless growth by leading from the front. 

Finally, what message do you have for prospective customers and employees who want to get in touch?

Please reach out! We’d love to start a conversation with you. Here’s how: 

• If you’re looking to see what our solution can do for your company, you can request a demo.
• We also have a fantastic partner program, so if you’re interested in offering ComplyAdvantage to your clients, get in touch. 
• If you want to join us, we’re actively recruiting for a number of roles across our sites in London, Cluj and New York. Check out our latest vacancies and submit your application.

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But not all businesses have the resources and expertise to protect themselves. Early-stage startups, in particular, are vulnerable to overlooking the nuances of compliance requirements.

To address this issue, ComplyAdvantage launched its ComplyLaunch™ program. The goal: to provide qualified startups with free access to the tools and resources they need to manage AML/CFT risks and compliance requirements. 

The response has been tremendous with the first cohort of startups having signed up in just a few days. The program has also garnered the support of world-class organizations, including Seccl, a technology platform providing custody for financial services firms looking to safeguard their clients’ assets. ComplyAdvantage recently sat down with Dan Marsh, the Head of Customer at Seccl, to discuss why AML/CFT compliance is vital and how ComplyAdvantage’s new program can help.

Let’s start with a bit of context. Please tell us what Seccl is and what high-level market opportunity your company is innovating for.

Seccl is a platform technology business. We provide investment services to companies across the UK who want to make financial markets accessible for their customers. We spent the last five years building the infrastructure that sits behind global financial markets to allow easy plug-and-play access for retail consumers to trade, invest and save for their futures.

A program like this is powerful for startups because it will protect the business before they know they need to be protected.

Daniel Marsh, Head of Customer, Seccl

Who are your customers? What solutions have you developed to help your customers innovate or grow their businesses?

Our customers typically fall into two camps. We serve professional financial services providers — referred to in the UK as wealth managers or financial advisors. Those individuals build deep, long-lasting relationships with individuals and couples across the UK, helping them navigate the complexities of financial life.

They might offer recommendations as to what individuals should do with their money, such as opening specific tax products or investing in a certain way to meet specific goals, whether that be sending a grandchild to school, helping kids get through university, helping someone get their foot on the property ladder or, probably the most common, helping to provide for a comfortable retirement.

The other customers we serve are at the other end of the spectrum. We serve businesses that want to embrace the force multiplier of technology to democratize access to financial markets. Typically, we would view these as wealthtech or fintech businesses, and the principal problem they’re trying to solve is that markets have traditionally had a relatively high barrier to entry. You’ve got to have a certain amount of wealth to make it worth it. You’ve got to have a certain amount of cash to invest; otherwise, the fees and so on will work against you.

Our biggest innovation, I think, was consolidating those two markets and realizing that both are served by a highly efficient digital experience, one where there is a high level of security for the underlying assets and transparency around what is happening in the platform. Most crucially, we offer a series of open APIs to allow users to connect and work from within their own domains. Instead of building a separate app that you have to log in to, which is super clunky, you can drive the activity straight from the experience that your customers already know and love.

That is brilliant. Is your company one that could be directly or indirectly impacted by money laundering and related financial crimes? If so, could you tell us why?

Yes, very seriously. At the end of the day, we receive money from clients. So when we look at financial crime, we look at several areas. 

First, we need to make sure the individuals that use our customers’ services and place their money with us are people we want to do business with. That is, we need to make sure they are who they say they are and that they’re not someone who has perhaps committed crimes of a certain nature abroad and who we don’t want exposure to from a business risk perspective.

Second, we look at how people use our system. Our system, as a custody and trading system, works with clients’ money. When you look at crimes from a money laundering perspective, the activities we watch for include placement and layering. Although the activity may occur outside our system, the impact is felt within our system.

So it’s critical that every firm we work with, firstly, has a rigorous process in place. Secondly, it’s important to have a deep bond of trust between both businesses because, ultimately, the only way you can protect yourself is to align yourself with partners who think like you do. As long as you’re both consumed by making sure that you’re doing the right thing by your customers while keeping them and yourself safe, you’ve got a really strong platform for growth for both businesses.

What motivated your team to join the ComplyLaunch program?

There’s the obvious: the value it brings to our customers. But that’s not, in my opinion, where it starts. When you want to build a partnership with any organization, what you’re looking at is: do we think the same way?

ComplyAdvantage’s focus, in my experience, has always been on enabling entrepreneurs to be successful. By nature, every one of our customers is entrepreneurial, so the fit probably couldn’t be better. On top of that, the program is clearly very compelling for firms in that it helps get them over some of the fixed costs that can sometimes act as a barrier.

Why do you think it’s important for startups to have free access to programs like ComplyLaunch?

If we look at it as a society, the idea that barriers to entry stifle innovation is a broad-brush answer. The more access that can occur at lower fixed initial costs — for example, the free program you’re launching — the greater the number of people who can bring new ideas to the market. Those new ideas will generate innovation, and those innovations will generate societal and customer benefits.

In terms of the firms themselves, it’s really important because when you’re working for a new startup, you’re making a choice, and that choice is always: what do I do with this pound that I’ve got here? You will do or die by a few key parts.

Protecting your business is critical, but it’s also easy to under-invest in it because it’s not sexy. It won’t help you with your growth metrics when you go and sit in front of that VC. It won’t help you socially sell to your friends. It is often something that doesn’t get thought about until the business is quite successful and in quite a lot of trouble.

A program like this is powerful for startups because it will protect the business before they know they need to be protected.

What advice would you give founders who are thinking about building a new fintech or financial service offering?

First, to be bold. There’s so much innovation in the markets that if you follow the trajectory everyone else follows, you’ll get the same outcome, and your ability to innovate will be marginal — maybe you’ll see a 10% or 20% improvement. Boldness in terms of what you’re prepared to change will have a force multiplier effect for you immediately but also over time.

Second, and this goes back to something we talked about before, it’s about trust. You want to work with a partner that thinks like you do because it’s very, very hard as a startup founder, or for any business unless you’re very mature, to anticipate all 10 of the 10 issues that will come your way.

You’ll probably only know about two of them. If the other partner doesn’t think like you, when the other eight come up, it’s going to be your problem. So you’re looking for someone who makes those eight problems a shared problem, because a problem shared is a problem halved; then a problem halved, that’s a problem solved. Ultimately, those partnerships and the trust that you build are probably more important than almost any other ingredient that you can pour into your startup early on.

Any last thoughts that you want to share?

We get very excited here at Seccl when we hear about programs such as this one because it’s very, very rare in the market to offer something with no strings attached. It almost always comes with a catch and then a follow-on. But what is interesting here is that this is about driving innovation. It’s about increasing access to financial markets, which, for our customers, is incredibly important. So this isn’t one of those opportunities you want to spend the next three months working out whether or not you want to do it. If you think there’s a fit, just get stuck in.

This interview has been edited and condensed. Learn more about the ComplyLaunch™ program and how you can get involved by clicking here.

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While the general public, already numbed by successive news stories of banking malfeasance, were muted in reaction, many of the U.S and European banks involved in the leak took a reputational hit nevertheless.  Governments and regulatory authorities took more note, however,  and as a result, it seems likely that the leaking of the files will encourage efforts at both local and international levels to strengthen the AML/CFT regime.

The FinCEN Files: What Happened?

As part of AML/CFT obligations, banks are required to monitor clients’ behaviour and report any suspicious activity, via Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs), to national Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs). The FinCEN files involved a significant number of SARs that were reported to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), the US FIU within the U.S. Treasury, but were subsequently leaked to journalists at the online media outlet Buzzfeed, and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). The data dump contained over 200,000 SARs from 1999 to 2017, covering transactions worth $2 trillion. The media reporting around the leak focused on the revelation that both the banks and governmental institutions were aware that large amounts of potentially dirty money were flowing through the international banking system, but that little was being done to impede it.  Unsurprisingly, the leak garnered a variety of diverse reactions from the news outlets, regulators, and the financial and banking sector alike.

A Significant Impact in Europe

Although the SARs in question were filed in the US, they mentioned not only US banks, but several major European banks, such as  Danske and Commerz, and other global banks with European bases such as HSBC, Societe Generale, Deutsche and Barclays. In particular, the ICIJ reported that over 60 percent of the SARs mention Deutsche Bank, although not necessarily exclusively in each report. Of the $2 trillion, (€1.68 trillion), in transactions that were flagged by financial institutions as suspicious, approximately $1.3 trillion (€1.09 trillion) passed through Deutsche Bank. 

The reports focused on a range of financial crime risks involving European banks, especially their vulnerability to dirty money from corrupt officials and oligarchs in East and Central Europe. One example relates to the Rotenberg brothers, who have close ties with Vladimir Putin, and was placed on the US sanctions list in 2014. The Rotenbergs opened an account with Barclays in 2008, using a shell company, and continued conducting transactions through 2016, even after sanctions had been imposed. In July 2020, the US Senate accused the Rotenbergs of using this shell company to secretly purchase millions of dollars in art in an effort to evade sanctions. 

Furthermore, the FinCEN files also pointed to the risk that many European banks were potentially being exploited by serious organised crime. Danske Bank’s Estonian branch, as well as Deutsche, were reported to have established relationships with networks of shell companies that were set up solely to hide the identities of organised crime leaders. The reports demonstrated the important role that shell companies played in the funneling of cash through the international system, as well as that of corporate services providers – many based in the UK – which created them.

The Response from the Financial Service Sector

Several of the European banks involved in the scandal did not issue public responses, but those that did tend to focus on the historic nature of the reports. Deutsche, for example, indicated that the reports related to previous failings within the bank, identified in conjunction with a 2016 AML/CFT enforcement action in the US that resulted in a remediation programme that addressed those weaknesses. Other expert observers suggested that the files were not especially shocking, indeed, that they demonstrated the AML/CFT system was operating expressly as designed, with banks simply reporting suspicion to the authorities, without undertaking specific actions to stop the flows. 

John Cusack, formerly the Global Head of Financial Crime at Standard Chartered opined, that the banks had been “pleading for reform for the last few years, and in particular SAR Reform.” He noted that if successful this would not only help the banks but law enforcement too,  reducing “the likely number of SARs filed” but also ensuring that they “would be of much higher quality…and focused on those areas that are priorities for…  Law Enforcement.” Cusack argued that the majority of clients involved with SARs are not investigated, much less prosecuted and that if banks closed accounts based on SARs activity alone, many would-be closed unnecessarily causing financial exclusion to economically marginal customers.  

A Call to Action for European Rule Makers

Although industry responses such as Cusack’s were common – and in terms of the obligations on banks accurate – the European political class has been generally unsympathetic to the idea that the system alone is at fault.   These reactions have of course been framed in part by the ongoing fall-out from recent European banking scandals involving Nordic and Baltic banks, which have reduced goodwill towards the financial services sector The succession of scandals, culminating with the FinCEN files have reinforced desires within the European Union (EU)  to take more aggressive action on AML/CFT, and in May 2020, the European Commission published proposals on creating a centralised EU AML/CFT authority and a single rulebook on regulations, rather than the existing AML directive (AMLD) approach, which was later solidified into a reform plan in October 2020 that was approved by EU ministers. and is due to be the basis of detailed proposals published in early 2021. Although the FinCEN files did not cause this development, they have at least provided additional impetus to the swift implementation of reform. 

What European Financial Institutions Can Expect

The ultimate implementation of the EU AML/CFT action plan will take time. However, it embarks on a step-change in AML/CFT regulation in the EU, moving away from broadly standardised regulations, slow-moving change, and a solely national application of regulations. The overall development of the EU’s AML/CFT approaches through successive AMLDs has been to bring more sectors within the scope of obligation and to increase the depth of private-sector obligations. These promised developments within the regulatory authorities are likely to energise this approach further. The lesson of the FinCEN Files and its aftermath is that businesses will be expected to take a more intelligent and agile response to financial crime risks in the future.

The post The Aftermath of the FinCEN Files for European Countries appeared first on ComplyAdvantage.

For a memorable fireworks night, we were at The Sunday Times Tech Track 100 Awards for 2019. We were honored and humbled to win the Digital Innovation Award sponsored by Hiscox. It was also a pleasant surprise to be nominated for The Best use of IP presented by N+1 Singer.

We were also shortlisted for the Deloitte 2019 UK Technology Fast 50, coming 21st thanks to our +1500% growth.

Awards are a welcome reminder of the incredible work our team does every day at ComplyAdvantage, but they’re not the reason why we do what we do.

Why We’re Here

ComplyAdvantage was started because of the unending stream of problems faced by financial institutions in meeting regulatory requirements. After the financial crisis, regulatory upkeep for banks was like learning to swim with your hands tied together. Ineffective at best.

The wave of digital transformation narratives have spoken a lot about how to change the journey of the customer and bringing innovation to finance, but they rarely cover the pressing issue of regulatory change.

Our founder recognized that the technology already existed for businesses to adapt to incoming regulatory changes and turn regulatory pressure into a thing of the past. To do that ComplyAdvantage has focused on making products to tackle financial crime.

But these products aren’t what sits at the heart of ComplyAdvantage. They’re the result of our vision to take on and neutralize the risk of money laundering, terrorist financing, corruption and all other global financial crimes.

Five Years of Hard Work

For the past five years, that’s what we’ve been hard at work developing. Creating bespoke rulesets that are data agnostic and capable of catching transaction behavior that your business finds suspicious.

Permitting ongoing monitoring of your clients that’s automated, alerting your compliance teams when necessary and tailored to your business requirements.

Compiling an Adverse Information and Media tool that scans millions of articles per day without requiring your compliance officers to use a search engine. And sanctions screening that updates before regulatory bodies are able to send out their emails.

We know this is a huge goal which will take everything we have to make it a reality, so we made it our mission to build the first global, connected database of people and companies powering world-leading financial crime detection tools.

These awards and accolades are fantastic and they mean so much to us as the industry recognizes what we’ve done. But it’s the work that we’re focused on and we’re already working on the next steps to equip businesses with the tools they need to make financial crime a thing of the past.

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Congratulations to our client Santander for winning “Best Innovation in Product or Service Design for Corporate Digital Onboarding” –  we’re humbled and proud that our data and technology is part of your award-winning product.

Santander and its partners have introduced a fully automated SME and corporate customer onboarding experience, using consolidated dynamic form functionality covering a wide range of banking products, combined with APIs so that due diligence can be completed accurately, first time and in one go. It includes KYB and KYC screening processes prior to initiating customer-facing onboarding activities. It eliminates duplication and includes a counter-signing process believed to be a UK first.

About London Institute of Banking & Finance

The London Institute of Banking & Finance works to advance banking and finance by providing outstanding education and thinking, tailored to the needs of business, individuals, and society.

At the heart of the sector since 1879, they create connections and build partnerships between people and business that make banking and finance more accessible and understood, and enhance social inclusion through better financial capability.

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“Remittance firms provide a vital service that makes a huge difference to the lives of some of the world’s least fortunate people. Reducing the cost and increasing the availability of remittances whilst ensuring that money does not end up in the hands of terrorists are extremely important tasks. As such, we are extremely proud that ComplyAdvantage’s innovations are recognised and these remittance payments are thus made possible.” – Charles Delingpole, CEO & Founder, ComplyAdvantage

Helping remittance companies safely move money is at the heart of ComplyAdvantage’s story. Our first clients back in 2014 included Somali MSBs who were faced with the threat of de-risking. Today, we use AI-driven risk data and innovative technology to help global remittance firms automate AML/CTF programs, reduce false positives and stay compliant while giving their banking partners the confidence that illicit finance isn’t slipping through the net undetected.

We specialise in helping global Remittance firms:

• Spot risks more effectively with richer, comprehensive and up-to-date financial crime risk data from structured and unstructured sources
• Reduce unnecessary false positives by up to 70% with a tailored and fully risk-based approach
• Maximise straight through processing whilst staying compliant
• Exceed regulator and banking counterparty expectations
• Improve efficiency by reducing time-intensive manual work and automating low-level decisions

This means our remittance clients can onboard customers faster, clear funds in minutes and provide a seamless customer experience – allowing them to focus on scaling their business without having to scale their compliance team and, more importantly, avoid doing business with people connected to financial crime.

We would like to congratulate the other award winners Safaricom, Trulioo, EcoCashDisapora, MONEYTIS, AirPocket, Xoom, Bitso, Everex and TransferTo all of whom provide best in class solutions for remittance providers. A special congratulations must be given to our clients Azimo who won the Judges Choices award for Ease of Use and Adoption.

We look forward to the next RemTech awards in 2019 and to seeing how this exciting industry has evolved, improving financial services for those worldwide who rely on remittances everyday.

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