Rising regulatory pressures and transaction volumes require improved efficiency and accuracy

Faster validation of suspicious activities. Better, more accurate alerts. Quicker click-through to critical data. The newest release of SAS^® Anti-Money Laundering goes further than ever to help analysts in financial institutions comply with anti-money laundering (AML) and counterterrorist financing regulations. The updates enable users to monitor more risks within even larger data volumes – and do so in minutes.

“A spotlight on efforts to stop the spread of terrorist activities plus increased regulatory pressure puts AML compliance as a top priority for financial institutions,” said Bill Fearnley, Research Director of Compliance, Fraud and Risk Analytics at IDC. “Deploying advanced analytics and visualisation tools help compliance analysts uncover patterns and anomalies so they can quickly document cases.”

Among respondents to a 2016 SAS and Longitude financial crime survey of 120 banks, 19 per cent had been fined by regulators or law enforcement agencies in the past three years – of those fined, 22 per cent faced penalties of $1 billion or more.

Fines like these can cause serious reputational damage. They ramp up pressure on banks to investigate and address suspicious activity swiftly, a process complicated by high transaction volumes from online and mobile banking.

SAS Anti-Money Laundering is a complete solution that covers suspicious activity monitoring, customer due diligence, watch list filtering and investigations case management. The software alleviates critical pain points for compliance departments:

• Transparency – Regulations demand banks explain their risk monitoring and prioritisation strategies. SAS’ transparent environment clearly describes how alerts are generated and provides tools to analyse the distribution of data and efficacy of monitoring strategies.
• Visualisation – SAS empowers users to change, author and test scenarios quickly. The streamlined user interface makes crucial information more readily available to analysts so they can quickly document cases and move work items through the decision-making process.
• Flexibility – SAS monitoring techniques are openly documented and backed by proven statistical methodologies for scenario deployment. The extendable and flexible SAS data model adapts to new lines of business, new client types or emerging risks.
• Consistency – SAS’ enhanced structure manages alerts and investigations centrally while preserving data security. This multitenant approach can reduce the cost of compliance and provide an enterprise wide view of risk exposure.

“Financial crime is an insidious issue which challenges all banks globally and in the UK,” said Christopher Ghenne, Business Solutions Manager at SAS. “Organisations that fall foul to financial crime risk tarnishing their reputation and overall trust. It’s only when banks are equipped with the tools that allow them to monitor risks and identify emerging patterns can they really begin to isolate potential threats. SAS Anti-Money Laundering’s visual and behavioural analytics helps organisations avoid the heavy penalties related to non-compliance.”

Find out more about SAS Anti-Money Laundering and the increasing importance of financial crimes intelligence units in banking.