AML Service Providers Share Their Expertise

October 6, 2005
MoneyLaundering.com

Following are excerpts taken from the October 6, 2005 edition of MoneyLaundering.com.

Experts who make their living providing anti-money laundering services to banks and other financial institutions shared tips on best practices with the more than 250 attendees at Money Laundering Alert’s Second Annual European Conference last week in Barcelona.

View your AML program as a whole.
D.R. Davis from the Washington D.C.-based Haydrian Corp. said that developing a comprehensive AML program is one of the more challenging jobs in banking. One way to make it easier would be to “view the job of KYC [know your customer], KYCC [know your customer’s customer], EDD [enhanced due diligence], transaction monitoring, SAR [suspicious activity reports] and other regulatory recordkeeping requirements not as individual tasks but as an integrated, inter-related program.”

Take care of your database: you are responsible for it
One of your most important AML tools is a software program’s filtering device, said Frederic Casadei from Fircosoft, a company based in Paris. The lists the filter works with are key components of your AML program. “Take care of that list, take care of yourself, and ensure that your tools allow you to monitor, to clean this list, because this is fundamental. Remember that a filter is looking for what is in the list and if something is mistaken in the list, you will not find it.”

Combine efforts with other departments
Janet Evans of the London office of Dallas-based Carreker Corp. stressed it is important that the fraud and compliance departments at banks work together. She said that when talking to financial institutions she often finds a huge separation between the two departments. “The two just do not talk to each other. There is no sharing of information. There is no passing of information.” So, she said, it is crucial to “integrate the two even if it is to share intelligence. The most important thing is to just talk to each other.”

Use lists that include unique identifiers for PEPs
When looking for data providers, one should evaluate how specific is the information it can provide. According to Malcolm Taylor, from Accuity, headquartered in Skokie, Illinois, unique identifiers are the key to the detection and monitoring of politically exposed persons. “Try and find a provider that has lots of unique identifiers like dates of birth and national ID numbers; because this will save you time and money when you need to do your due diligence and when you are searching for a potential match. So look at the quality of the data - it needs to be accurate, up to date, and with lots of unique identifiers.”

Software: look to the future… but don’t forget the past
 Sabine Solleheim  from HAL Knowledge Solutions Ltd., headquartered in Italy, explained that users want to consider past transactions as well as future ones when buying software. She compared it to buying anti-virus software. “When you buy antivirus software today you install it, and you don’t want to get viruses in the future via email or something else. But what you also do is that you scan your existing data, you make sure there is no virus on your disk so you can start working and protect yourself for future activities.”

Keep your blacklist updated
Alankar Urankar from Infrasoft Technologies, an Indian company, reminded attendees that they must continually screen and monitor to pick up on suspect persons.  “Make sure that your blacklists are updated and that you check your names against updated data,” he said. He also recommended the use of case management tools that make AML professional lives easier.