NICE Actimize, a NICE Systems (NASDAQ:NICE) business and the largest and broadest provider of financial crime, risk and compliance solutions for the financial services industry, announces the launch of the new Actimize Customer Due Diligence (“CDD”) Suite, the first enterprise-ready, out-of-the-box solution that addresses “branch to bank” customer risk, while managing requirements for due diligence and entity monitoring regulations. The new Actimize CDD Suite seamlessly integrates with third party data sources and proactively monitors breaking news with “always on” risk assessment to provide continually updated customer risk profiles and enriched investigations.
 
Built upon NICE Actimize’s decade-long understanding of CDD applications gained from customer implementations around the world, the new Actimize CDD Suite enables financial institutions to centrally manage CDD operations and to support multiple Know-Your-Customer (“KYC”), CDD, and Enhanced Due Diligence (“EDD”) processes. The new Actimize CDD Suite also addresses anti-bribery and corruption vendor management requirements and will be rolling out to many types of large corporations, in addition to financial institutions.
 
“In today's regulatory environment, there are numerous new checks that need to be performed and classifications that need to be applied to entity data in order to ensure market transparency and risk management obligations are being met,” said Virginie O’Shea, senior analyst at research advisory firm Aite Group. “The KYC process is therefore more extensive and complex than ever before, involving the assessment of many more data points and documentation checks, including at the fund or ultimate beneficial owner level. The Fourth AML Directive in Europe will add further fuel to these challenges. Adopting a more comprehensive and integrated approach to KYC and customer data management across an organization is therefore essential in this evolving environment.”
 
The new Actimize CDD Suite provides a 360-degree view of customer risk by combining a multitude of capabilities into a single solution. First, it allows a seamless integration of negative news and third party data directly to the institution’s risk profiles and ties external data into the institution’s risk rating. Second, it constantly scans global news sources for any new events and notifies the institution so that the institution can take proactive action to evaluate the news. Third, it streamlines the customer experience by allowing front-office relationship managers to assess risk in real-time during the onboarding process.
 
These processes work together along with additional research tools to manage investigation, reporting and auditing. The new Actimize CDD Suite also makes sure all products and divisions globally are using the same consistent risk scoring methodology.
 
Using the new Actimize CDD Suite’s Onboarding Model for the “branch to the bank” strategy, front office relationship managers can easily assess and mitigate risk during the onboarding process while the customer is still in the bank, accelerate customer intake and avoid human errors. Other new functionalities in the new Actimize CDD Suite include the EDD Investigator, which removes subjectivity and automates the risk mitigation process with seamless integration to negative news and adverse media data sources resulting in more accurate risk assessment and quicker due diligence investigation resolution.
 
“The new Actimize CDD Suite pushes risk controls and compliance to the front lines, offering the industry a groundbreaking, singular customer risk control which introduces a never-before-seen capability to manage a range of risks from the branch to the bank,” said Joe Friscia, President, NICE Actimize. “This solution is built to begin to allow firms to identify risks before they manipulate the institution. Moreover, the applications of this new suite are able to go far beyond the needs of just financial institutions, offering complete vendor management capabilities for a range of industries and enterprises.”
 
The new Actimize CDD Suite integrates Alacra, Inc.'s market leading customer onboarding and KYC tool, Alacra Compliance Enterprise, into Actimize's CDD anti-money laundering (“AML”) solution. Created to leverage external data sources to offer enhanced real-time data investigations, Alacra’s tool works with the Actimize CDD solution to proactively monitor the latest breaking news and other pertinent data changes, providing financial institutions a proactive system which monitors both internal and external risks.