According to Forbes’ AML Fines 2021 report, financial institutions worldwide were fined a staggering $2.7 billion in 2021 for lack of compliance and due diligence in AML (anti-money laundering) standards. An article written in Forbes on March 2022 mentions that the highest individual total was at $700 million for Malaysian lender AmBank for their links to the 1MDB financial scandal.
Fines at this scale are a major blow, even for huge financial institutions. However, many other small to medium scale financial businesses could also be easily crippled by it. “Globally, regulators and financial institutions are coming under increased pressure to stop illegal flows, so organisations need to prepare for increased scrutiny of their activities.” writes Forbes council member, Ian Henderson.
And nowhere is this more so true than in the Philippines.
Fortunately, there’s a great tool that will assist you in preparation and prevention of your organisation from being used by bad actors for money laundering and help you overcome your shortcomings in AML compliance.
The Global Pressure on Financial Institutions
Regulators all over the world, including the UK’s FCA, are cracking down on banks and other financial institutions whose anti-fraud processes are inadequate. This especially applies to AML and KYC (know your customer) processes, as well as managing key customer data and performing proper due diligence.
While big banks are spending billions on improving their systems, most have a long way to go in order to complete and make up for the compliance inadequacy. For example, the NatWest Group has recently announced an investment of £1 billion on improving its financial crime control, yet they still generally rely on manual spreadsheet to monitor customers.
It is common knowledge that spreadsheets are an insufficient tool for AML and KYC as it’s nearly impossible to track customer behaviour and monitor ongoing due diligence with this. Although the technology to automate such processes have been in existence for quite some time, only a handful of organisations have appeared to have invested in them.
These shortcomings aren’t just limited to UK financial institutions, nor are the crackdowns by national financial regulators on them. In a case that came to light in 2017, Deutsche Bank’s AML team was unable to obtain the information it needed because its spreadsheet “is done manually by a team member and capturing so many records will be painful.” The bank was eventually fined £163 million.
New Legislation in the Philippines
While the crackdown on financial institutions by regulators is a global matter, it has become an especially urgent situation in the Philippines. Although the uptake of digital transactions has lagged behind the rest of the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has created a major movement towards digital - - and regulators are fast catching up.
This year alone, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) issued Circular 1140 requiring all BSP-Supervised Financial Institutions (BSFIs) to implement automated and real-time fraud monitoring and detection systems in order to identify and block suspicious or fraudulent online transactions. These systems constantly need to calibrate in order to process transaction surges, analyse customer profiles and behaviours, as well as detect new fraud patterns. BSFIs must be compliant by the end of December 2022.
Many financial institutions don’t have the means to set up these systems which creates a major problem. Even those that do have the means would struggle to have anything in place given the short deadline. This is where GVX comes in.
GVX and Our AI Platform
GVX, a cybersecurity, AML, KYC and fraud prevention consultancy company, has partnered with a powerful AI platform – market leader in its area – to supply all requirements of Circular 1140, along with satisfying global financial regulations.
Our solution provides automated and real-time fraud protection, as well as detecting fraud in real-time and scoring target behavioural patterns, even for newly onboarded customers. It also supplies MRI (Merchant Risk Intelligence) such as monitoring sales patters and over all risk scores in order to provide BSFIs and businesses with a fraud strategy that is fast, smart and efficient.
Our AI platform isn’t restricted to website and mobile app transactions. It also has powerful anti-fraud protection for transactions through e-commerce, POS, mPOS, QR codes and ATMs.
Now IS the Time to Act
If you’re a financial organisation in the Philippines, you’ve no time to lose; but wherever you are in the world, your national regulator will be requiring even higher standards of compliance on fraud prevention. And AI is the way forward.
Want to know more on how our AI platform can help make your organization more regulation compliant avoiding the risk of massive fines?
Get in touch with us at info@gvxconsulting.com to arrange for a free consultation or schedule a platform demo.