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You may think you know about AML, but do you really get it?


AML/CFT Compliance Operating Model

A banking licence implies a responsibility to financially support the economy, the community and the firm’s clients – and to protect the clients’ right to privacy. The same licence obliges banks to prevent criminals from abusing the financial infrastructure to launder illegal money and finance terrorism.

These two important tasks may appear to clash and striking a balance between them is not easy.

The solution to this conundrum lies in implementing an AML compliance framework that seamlessly fuses these two important objectives. Having experienced the challenge first hand, i-KYC’s specialists understand the complex dynamics and can guide you to safe harbour using best market practice models.

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Trust = Transparency + Integrity + Fairness

Know Your Customer

KYC is at the heart of an institution’s commercial success and its financial integrity.

Performing Customer Due Diligence is an acquired skill that, like good wine, gets better over time.

A good CDD analyst will have a higher than average intelligence, an inquisitive and internationally oriented mindset, strong analytical and numerical inclination and an ability to quickly sift through large amounts of data to identify significant information.

Furthermore, good analysts are team players who combine confidence through evidence-based conviction with an ability to empathise with, and accommodate the interests of the business without compromising the firm’s reputation. Good verbal and written communication skills are essential given the need to effectively liaise with client facing staff as well as Compliance.

Finally, analysts preferably understand the business of banking to enable them to more easily spot illogical customer/product combinations and/or suspicious behavioural patterns and situations.

This section of Client Life-Cycle Management is mostly related to international sanctions compliance.

The ugly truth is that sanctions compliance has nothing to do with ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. It is about politics, deal with it. Another reality is that there is no room for interpretation or error. A mistake can be very costly. If you need convincing, just check the newspapers.

This real-time obligation imposes a heavy responsibility. Let i-KYC’s experts support you to ensure full compliance at all times.

The third pillar of an effective KYC programme is the requirement to conduct ongoing risk-based transaction monitoring of clients. This discipline enables the institution to determine whether transactions are in line with the established client profile, fit the organisation’s risk appetite and to detect possible unusual activity.

Most institutions rely on automated monitoring programmes systems for this obligation, however AML compliance cannot be reduced to mechanisation. Technology is no ‘silver bullet’ but one of several tools to support a competent monitoring team.

Transaction monitoring programmes can be evaluated on two scales: effectiveness, the ability to detect suspicious activity and efficiency, the ability to minimise the number of alerts generated for non-suspicious activities.

Our Transaction Monitoring experts can help your institution strike the right balance.

Money matters!

Can you think like a criminal and successfully launder dirty money?

Test your skill!

Accept The Challenge

Process Optimisation

Numerous institutions have discovered to their detriment that maintaining AML/CFT compliance is a complex affair. Juggling conflicting interests and covering all the bases in a dynamic environment is no easy challenge. Assuming your institution is not the type to throw caution to the wind, the temptation may be to apply a belt-and-braces approach.

Paradoxically, experience shows that just adding evermore procedures and controls may actually increase the number of compliance incidents. Add to this increased staff and customer frustration, missed opportunities and higher cost as inevitable side-effects and the case for careful calibration of the processes is clear.

i-KYC can help you design efficient processes and procedures or validate those you currently apply against best market practice and optimise effectiveness and efficiency.

Quality Assurance

Prima facie higher AML risk profile clients require enhanced due diligence and it is very frustrating for all involved to revisit a file because certain research steps were missed or not executed to standard.

A good Quality Assurance (QA) programme helps reduce the error rate and is therefore a vital part of the process. i-KYC has developed an embedded QA process which, together with our strategic partner KYCQuest’s EDD questionnaire enhances team learning and reduces time-to-completion…as well as frustration.

Curious to hear how this can enhance your BAU or remediation project’s efficiency? Contact us for a demonstration.

Effectiveness is doing the right things, efficiency is doing things right, first time


Support

Temporary Support

Your KYC support organisation is built to cater to your business-as-usual requirements. Perhaps as a result of an audit  finding or to help the organisation migrate to a higher level of regulatory compliance, more resources are required and bringing in outside operational expertise on a temporary basis makes good sense.

i-KYC can flexibly provide these resources, giving your organisation not only access to hands-on Customer Due Diligence, Sanctions or Transaction Monitoring expertise but also peace of mind. Contact us to find out more.

Project Management

Are you considering to upgrade your Compliance Operations or contemplating to offshore certain operational activities in the interest of greater efficiency?

These complex operations require experience and a steady hand to capture the benefits without jeopardising controls. i-KYC can provide project management expertise to see the changes through. Contact us for more details.

Fast-track to control


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