Deloitte’s Financial Crime Symposium explores the effective management of financial crime risk across Middle East region

Deloitte recently hosted the fifth Financial Crime Symposium in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The annual event serves as a platform to bring together leading figures from across the global financial services industry, discussing regulatory and financial crime matters in the Middle East region.

This year’s conference provided a vibrant forum through keynote speakers and panel discussions, exploring illicit finance and Public Private Partnership, the risks facing businesses and debunking the myths of technology and analytics in financial crime effectiveness.

“It was great to reconnect with so many people at the fifth edition of the Deloitte Middle East Financial Crime Symposium. The conference provided valuable insight from key industry experts who discussed Financial Crime as a continued challenge in the Middle East and across the globe. We are experiencing a rapidly evolving and increasingly interconnected financial system, highly sophisticated criminal networks and increasing pressure from local and global regulators which creates significant complexity for our Financial Institutions. To combat this, we need to be coordinated, collaborative and innovative in our approach. We are seeing how new technologies and advanced analytics are becoming vital to be effective, but we cannot use them in isolation. By combining industry knowledge with data and technology, we can better equip ourselves to both meet regulatory expectations and, more importantly, elevate the fight against Financial Crime,” said Muzammil Ebrahim, Deloitte Middle East Financial Crime & Data Analytics Leader.

The panels explored topics on the changing landscape of illicit finance and how Public Private Partnerships facilitated a response. They also discussed key risks in the maritime industry, the role cryptocurrency may play, understanding the risks facing businesses in a particular market or jurisdiction and how to address them. They further elaborated on technology and analytics in Financial Crime effectiveness, key considerations to select the correct technology solutions and the advanced methods of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence.

Michael Shepard, Deloitte’s Global Financial Crime Leader, commented, “Globally we can see how countries and organisations are addressing Financial Crime through improved international cooperation, development of Public Private Partnerships and recent regulatory changes and proposed changes. Regulators, law enforcement and financial institutions are all on the same side in combatting financial crime, and continued collaboration, cooperation and innovation are critical to success. The Deloitte Financial Crime Symposium was a truly insightful experience to hear more about the developments being made.”