• Time taken to collate relevant information and the level and quality of data available on clients are revealed as the biggest obstacles AML creates for solicitors
• Better tech to streamline compliance processes paired with better education on what is expected of fee earners are both required to drive engagement

Fee earners undervaluing AML compliance processes has been revealed as the biggest challenge for compliance teams across the law sector, according to a recent poll conducted by Accuity, a LexisNexis® Risk Solutions company, and leading provider of financial crime compliance, payments and financial counterparty know your customer solutions.

The survey of over 300 UK law sector compliance professionals, conducted during a recent webinar in association with the Law Society, also revealed a ‘lack of sufficient compliance resource’ to be a problem for a quarter of firms when it comes to encouraging fee earners to put AML policy into practice.

When asked what fee earners cite as the major obstacles AML creates for them, ‘time taken to collate relevant information’ was the leading issue for over half (56%) of firms, with the ‘level and quality’ of available data on a client (15%) and creating friction in client relationships (15%) also being flagged as challenges.

A majority of respondents (45%) agreed tech-driven AML solutions would make the biggest difference in encouraging fee earners to engage more readily with AML processes. A better understanding of the critical nature of AML (20%) and clearer guidance on what is expected of them (23%) were also popular suggestions for encouraging better engagement.

Nina Kerkez, Director of UK&I Consulting at LexisNexis® Risk Solutions commented:

“This poll paints a somewhat concerning picture of AML compliance within the legal sector, suggesting controls designed to protect both business and customer are considered as hurdles, without fully appreciating their importance. The solution must be transforming the culture surrounding compliance, providing the right tools, knowledge and pushing the tone from the top, to ensure all practitioners understand its crititcal and strategic importance.

“The good news is that there’s widespread recognition that the right tools, in the form of tech-enabled AML solutions, can significantly cut the time taken to collate information by putting reliable data and intelligence about clients at fee earners’ fingertips . In the law sector in particular, time is money, so by reducing the time required on non-fee earning tasks like compliance, technology will not only allow practitioners to ensure they’re putting their firm’s AML policy into practice in the best possible way, but will also free up more time to focus on their revenue generating role.”

“With UK firms’ AML obligations expected to rise as a result of the UK leaving the EU and the cost burden of compliance processes continuing to rise, the legal sector must act now to ensure they have the appropriate AML tools in place to support their fee earners in carrying out appropriate AML checks and avoid turning down clients.”

¹ Poll was conducted during a webinar entitled ‘How to meet your AML objectives’ in conjunction with The Law Society, UK and Accuity, a LexisNexis Risk Solutions Company on 15 July.

Investors face significant operational risk challenges, heightened by trend towards niche alternative investment strategies

bfinance, the independent investment consultancy, today announces the appointment of Matthew Siddick as Operational Risk Solutions Senior Director. Siddick will head up bfinance’s new Operational Risk Solutions advisory unit, based in the firm’s London office. He brings more than 14 years of experience in financial services, pensions and investments, most recently as head of EMEA Operational Due Diligence at Aon. He reports to Duncan Higgs, Managing Director and Head of Portfolio Solutions.

Siddick represents bfinance’s first senior appointment dedicated solely to Operational Due Diligence (“ODD”) matters. He will focus on enhancing and developing solutions designed to support investors’ operational risk requirements, both at the time of appointing external asset managers and over the longer-term as part of ongoing due diligence.

The move reflects the evolving ODD challenges faced by the firm’s asset owner clients—such as pension funds, insurers and endowments—who are seeking to conduct thorough analysis of external asset managers in order to protect against losses incurred through operational failures, such as fraud or blow-up. “While there have been significant improvements in asset managers’ operational control in the 10-plus years since the Global Financial Crisis, operational deficiencies still represent a major potential pitfall,” says Higgs. “Today we see growing complexities within areas such as cyber security.”

Higher allocations to alternative investments can also increase the ODD burden: these strategies bring further potential for exposure to differentiated risks such as those related to complex counterparty relationships, the use of leverage and private market valuation methodologies. Alternative asset classes—particularly private markets—have represented an increasingly prominent portion of bfinance’s manager research. During the 12 months to June 30^th 2021, 45% of all new manager searches initiated by bfinance clients were focused on private markets, including a number of less conventional sectors such as Trade Finance, Impact Real Estate, Equipment Leasing and high-yielding Real Estate Debt.

Siddick was formerly Head of EMEA Operational Due Diligence at Aon where he led the firm’s London based ODD group responsible for evaluating the operational risk of managers and funds held by Aon’s clients across the firm’s Advisory and Fiduciary platforms. He holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Economics from the University of Sussex and is a CAIA Charterholder.

Duncan Higgs, Managing Director and Head of Portfolio Solutions at bfinance, said: “We are delighted to welcome Matt to the team: he brings outstanding experience in the field. This appointment is an important step in the enhancement of the firm’s ODD capability as we look to support our asset owner clients with the challenges they currently face.”

Matthew Siddick, Senior Director and Head of Operational Risk Solutions at bfinance, said: “I take great pleasure in joining bfinance and engaging with the firm’s diverse global client base. As investors’ strategies become ever more complex and portfolios increasingly gain exposure to alternative asset classes, there is a growing operational risk burden. It is crucial for investors to be able to demonstrate that related operational risks have been evaluated, measured and monitored in a structured and well-documented fashion.”

Screens originator, beneficiary and counter-party transactions against official international sanctions lists

Bottomline, a leading provider of financial technology that makes complex business payments simple, smart and secure, today announced the availability of Bottomline Watchlist Screening (WLS) delivered by lightweight API implementation through Bottomline’s SaaS technology. Bottomline’s payments expertise, shaped across multiple junctions of the payment lifecycle, helped engineer a sanctions solution that can reduce false-positives dramatically, offers faster go-live and is less costly than many alternatives.  The first North American financial institution and the first multinational corporate customers are implementing Watchlist Screening.

WLS is available to financial institutions and corporates globally, who can easily implement it with existing Bottomline secure payments solutions or as a standalone solution. WLS screens originator, beneficiary and counter-party transactions in real-time against official sanctions lists built into the solution and published by international regulatory bodies including the EU, HMT, OFAC, OFSI and UN. 

Bottomline Watchlist Screening’s integrated sanctions lists empower financial institutions and corporates to:

·           Comply with Anti-Money Laundering (AML)/Counter Terrorist Financing (CTF), Know Your Customer (KYC) and Wire Transfer Regulations (WTR2) — including AML, CTF and KYC screening, and AML and KYC compliance

·           Centralize and automate transaction Sanctions screening, including alerting, workflows and reporting to overcome limited compliance/risk resources available to manage and process large volumes of data

·           Implement and refine AML/CTF risk models to reduce false positives when identifying and screening sanctioned and high-risk entities.

Global financial and corporate organizations rely on Bottomline for domestic and international payments, state of the art fraud detection, insider fraud protection, behavioral analytics, consolidated cash management and regulatory compliance solutions. Bottomline’s fraud and financial crime solutions for Banking include Secure Payments, Insider Fraud, Enterprise Case Manager and Compliance solutions, which are used by hundreds of banks worldwide to manage fraud across all fraud types and also used by Bottomline to protect our own payment network. Bottomline’s capabilities have been recognized in the Major Players category of the IDC Marketscape: World Enterprise Fraud Management in Banking 2020 Vendor Assessment #US45617020, July 2020. 

“Financial institutions and enterprises continue to struggle to screen ever-growing volumes of customer and transaction data against a variety of watchlists,” said Arin Ray, Senior Analyst with Celent's Securities & Investments practice. “Ongoing regulatory scrutiny around the world, always evolving watchlists and the increasing complexity of a globally-interconnect financial system have exposed the limitations of traditional technology solutions in screening.  The need for real-time, integrated sanctions intelligence is becoming an imperative.”

“Bottomline is committed to fighting fraud and financial crime across the full life of a payment in the highly digital, global and regulated world of transactions,” said Omri Kletter, VP, Fraud and Financial Crime, Bottomline. “We’ve embarked on a journey to disrupt the sanction screening market. This shake-up aims to help banks and corporates comply with the regulation in a modern way, with dramatically lowered false-positive results.

Using a SaaS-based approach, our view across payment junctions lets us extend our fraud expertise to bring corporates and financial institutions a watchlist screening offering that is easy to use, fast to implement and offers core protection across the lifecycle of payments.”

Learn more about Bottomline Watchlist Screening and Fraud and Financial Crime capabilities. Visit Bottomline.com.

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), the premier post-trade market infrastructure for the global financial services industry, today announced that its Global Trade Repository (GTR) service, via its legal entity, DTCC Data Repository (Singapore) Pte. Ltd. (DDRS), is ready to support in-scope Singapore firms with trade reporting services for the final phase of the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (MAS) derivatives trade reporting requirements, which are scheduled to take effect on 1 October 2021.

The final phase of MAS’ Reporting Regulations for over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives contracts marks the last step in trade reporting rules, set out in the Securities & Futures Act (SFA). The forthcoming regulation brings finance companies, subsidiaries of banks in Singapore, insurers and CMS license holders with specified derivatives contracts in an annual aggregate gross notional amount of more than S$5 billion, as well as significant derivatives holders—namely, persons with specified derivatives contracts in an annual aggregate gross notional amount of more than S$8 billion—into scope. As of October 2021, these firms will be required to report their equities, commodities and foreign exchange derivatives contracts traded and/or booked in Singapore to MAS.

“We are pleased to support MAS in its efforts to reduce risk and increase transparency in the derivatives market by adding a broader set of financial firms to the reporting regime,” said Priya Kundamal, DTCC General Manager and Head of DDRS. “We look forward to collaborating with MAS, our clients and the industry to bring new insights and greater risk reduction to the OTC derivatives space.”

DDRS is the only trade repository service approved by MAS to operate in Singapore. Firms will be able submit their applicable derivatives contracts either directly to DDRS or by delegated submission through a counterparty that uses DDRS’ trade reporting services. In order to leverage DTCC’s trade reporting capabilities to comply with the forthcoming reporting requirements, firms will first need to onboard to DDRS and begin testing their submissions ahead of the 1 October 2021 compliance date. The DTCC Learning Center and client service teams have been resourced to provide clients with the support they require to become familiar with the GTR system.

Kundamal added, “We look forward to providing our extensive set of trade reporting capabilities to additional firms in Singapore, enabling them to meet forthcoming trade reporting requirements. Now is the time for newly in-scope firms to review their preparations as the compliance date draws near.”

Today, DTCC’s GTR service in Asia has more than 400 clients across the region, reporting approximately 3 million open positions under the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC), the Financial Services Agency (JFSA), the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Hong Kong Authority (HKMA). GTR is the only trade reporting service in the world that supports regulatory reporting across the Asia-Pacific region for all five major OTC derivatives asset classes.

Globally, the GTR service, through locally registered trade repositories, has almost 9,000 clients and 150 partner firms, providing reporting to over 60 regulators across 35 countries, maintaining approximately 40 million open OTC positions per week and processing over one billion messages per month, making it the largest trade repository service in the world.

• Retail investor sentiment on euro vs pound sterling sets new bullish record
• Sentiment towards WTI equals high not seen since October 2019
• 61.2m securitised derivatives were traded on Spectrum last month

Spectrum Markets, the pan-European trading venue for securitised derivatives, has published its SERIX^TM European retail investor sentiment data for July (see below for more information on methodology), including record bullish sentiment towards the euro against pound sterling, as well as for WTI.

Sentiment on EURGBP jumped to a new record high of 119 last month, resuming a trend of increasingly positive sentiment that started in June last year when it recorded a SERIX^TM value of 78. This came as the European Central Bank held its first meeting since announcing a new, and more tolerant, 2 per cent inflation target.

“We’ve seen a marked improvement in sentiment towards the euro-pound pairing developing since last summer, and its SERIX^TM notched up a new record high in July,” notes Michael Hall, Head of Business Development at Spectrum Markets. “Unsurprisingly the ECB meeting on the 22^nd attracted a lot of interest from the market, and we certainly saw a big uptick in trading volumes that day from retail investors on our platform.”

Monthly retail investor sentiment towards WTI also reached record levels, with a SERIX^TM value of 105, up from a bearish 96 in the previous month. July’s figures equalled the previous highest bullish sentiment for WTI, set when Spectrum first launched in October 2019, which is also the date from which SERIX^TM data is calculated.

“While we saw Opec+ members agree a new deal in July to increase production starting in August, the jump in sentiment suggests retail investors believe another 400,000 barrels per day will do little to bring down prices in the near term,” bexplains.

During July, 61.2 million securitised derivatives were traded on Spectrum, with 31.7% of trades taking place outside of traditional hours (i.e. between 17:30 and 9:00 CET). 84.5% of the traded derivatives were linked to indices, 7.2% to currency pairs, and 8.3% to commodities, with the top three traded underlying markets being DAX 30 (32%), OMX 30 (16.4%) and NASDAQ 100 (12.9%).

Looking at the SERIX^TM data for the top three underlying markets, the DAX 30 crept into bullish territory, rising from 98 to 101, while the OMX 30 continued to reverse some of the bullish momentum seen this year, dropping from 94 to 92 in July. Sentiment on NASDAQ 100 meanwhile rose to 98, up from 91 in June.

Iress today announced that it is transitioning its award-winning Execution Management System (EMS) to its cloud platform as part of its trading technology strategy for the UK. The last twelve months have seen exponential growth in usage of Iress’ EMS, in terms of both new clients and trading volume, and the transition to cloud enables Iress to deploy new services and seamlessly scale on demand. 

As a result, firms will be able to increase or decrease trading capacity as the market and their business dictates, and to implement new services and functionality with shorter  development cycles. It will also drive continued improvements to the efficiency and performance of Iress’ EMS along with maintaining the highest levels of security, stability and resilience.

The final quarter of 2020 saw a 60% increase in global equity trading volumes* compared with Q4 2019 and Iress has seen record trade volumes processed via the EMS since early 2020. This increase in flow highlights the fact that flexibility and agility is vital now and into the future. While this cloud architecture is not applied today to all trading environments, such as low-latency, it is a critical enabler for the future of the application of technology to order flow and connectedness. 

Iress’ Executive General Manager, Trading and Market Data UK, Eugene O’Herlihy, said “The investment Iress has made in its cloud foundations underpins Iress’ growth and acceleration plans in bringing trading products to the market. Iress’ cloud capability brings operating benefits, flexibility and scalability for our clients in an ever-changing market. Accessing new markets, increasing trading capacity and additional services will be greatly simplified and accelerated and will help to drive further growth and business innovation.”

*https://www.statista.com/statistics/242745/volume-of-global-equity-trading/

LEAD Consult, a specialist in providing business and IT consulting services to the financial sector, is proud to announce a new partnership with additiv to meet the growing demand for wealth management services embedded into context-relevant user-journeys.

The collaboration with additiv, a leading SaaS and Embedded Finance provider to the wealth management industry, comes in response to the increasing need for out-of-the-box state-of-the-art hybrid client wealth management advisory services alongside other financial products. Together, fast and efficient implementation is ensured to enable platform solutions, such as for independent financial advisors (IFAs), to realize the value of embedded wealth – an opportunity estimated to be worth $100billion globally.  

In addition, the partnership ensures that additiv clients will benefit from LEAD Consult’s experience in integrating and onboarding trading and risk management systems for Tier 1-3 financial institutions.

Eric Andersson, General Manager Europe at additiv said “LEAD Consult are a great addition to our broad range of ecosystem partners.  They are an ideal partner to support our clients when implementing our award winning DFS orchestration platform.”

Eric continues “LEAD Consult’s ability to analyze business issues, processes and requirements, support system and product design and undertake quality assurance is second to none.  We have no doubt that this partnership adds even further value to the broad range of support that our clients already experience though our network of leading partners.” 

Dragomir Stanchev, Founder, CEO and Principal Consultant at LEAD Consult said “We are delighted to support additiv as it leads the way in making embedded wealth a reality.  The importance of combining additiv’s DFS orchestration platform with core banking, regulated services and financial planning through a streamlined approach cannot be underestimated.”

“Our deep industry knowledge together with excellent skills in management consulting, technology and innovation allows us to challenge conventional thinking; which is crucial at this time when traditional finance models are being disrupted through embedded finance.  Add to this our ability to deliver exceptional results that have a lasting impact on businesses and companies worldwide and we believe we are the perfect partner to implement end-to-end embedded wealth services to platforms including private banks and IFAs.”

Timo, Vietnam’s first digital bank, has announced it is partnering with SaaS banking platform Mambu to leverage the benefits of a cloud native core banking platform to significantly scale its business.

Timo, one of Vietnam’s most innovative banks, offers a unique, user-friendly ‘banking-on-the-go’ experience to customers, and was named both Fastest Growing Digital Bank and Most Innovative Digital Bank at the 2020 Global Economics Awards.

“We selected Mambu’s market-leading cloud banking platform as we understand the value in leveraging a cloud-native, true SaaS core banking platform as we look to scale our business,” explained Henry Nguyen, CEO of Timo. 

“The fact that Mambu’s platform utilises AWS’ comprehensive suite of services also gave us an additional layer of confidence and allowed us to envisage the true potential of what Timo can become. Our collaboration with both Mambu and AWS enables Timo to reap the benefits of a range of best-for-purpose technologies and will position us at the forefront of Vietnam’s digital banking revolution.”

The Vietnamese banking and financial services industry is ripe for disruption and innovation, with low rates of formal financial inclusion but very high rates of smartphone ownership and internet penetration, and a young, digitally-savvy population. The Vietnamese government is also proactively pushing for innovation, aiming for 80 per cent of the adult population to be ‘banked’ by 2025.

“Mambu strives to work with organisations that are truly focused on improving financial inclusion and making banking better, and we have certainly found that with Timo,” said Myles Bertrand, Managing Director APAC at Mambu. “We are delighted to be partnering with Timo, an innovative and forward-thinking organisation that has already made such a significant positive impact in Vietnam. We look forward to working together to enable rapid growth for Timo and to make a real difference to the way banking services are delivered in Vietnam.”

There is currently significant opportunity for Vietnam to attract FDI in the digital banking space, with the Vietnamese market proving very attractive to overseas banks and private equity firms due to digital-savvy Vietnamese consumers. The rise of digital banking in the country will also enable financial institutions to tap the unbanked as well as provide customised solutions to the rising middle class.

“Vietnam is an incredibly important market for Mambu,” concludes Pham Quang Minh, General Manager Vietnam, for Mambu, “and we are very proud to have formed this partnership with Timo, one of the country’s leading digital banks. Mambu is committed to continuing our investment in Vietnam to extend our help to established banks and financial institutions to help them transform their legacy infrastructure, enhance their digital capabilities and deliver tailored customer experiences.” 

Introduction of a single API solution offers a holistic approach to fraud and risk, covering the customer lifecycle across enrolments, payments, change events, compliance, to ongoing KYC and due diligence

Refinitiv, one of the world’s largest providers of financial markets data and infrastructure, today announced that the EPIC Platform from GIACT and World-Check are now together and accessible via a single API. The integration brings together the comprehensive risk intelligence from World-Check with the unprecedented capability of GIACT to deliver a multi-dimensional view of consumer and business identity, payments, and compliance risk, across the customer lifecycle.

Nearly half (47%) of U.S. consumers were impacted by identity theft in the past two years, with resulting losses increasing 42% year-on-year to $712.4 billion in 2020, according to Aite Group. Concurrently, both traditional and emerging fraud risk, alongside complex compliance requirements, has delivered record financial losses and reputational risk to organizations across almost every industry. 

The integration announced today is set to address all manner of fraud and risk-related threats and inefficiencies by combining industry-leading solutions into a single API that can be deployed across an organization. 

“For over a decade, legacy solutions have failed to adequately protect financial institutions, businesses and consumers from identity and payments fraud,” said James Mirfin, Global Head of Digital Identity and Fraud Solutions at Refinitiv. “Until today, no one has been able to deliver a fraud and risk mitigation solution that spans the customer lifecycle. Refinitiv responded to the industry’s calls by combining the power of the EPIC Platform and World-Check into a single comprehensive solution that eliminates gaps in the fraud prevention process; helps protect financial institutions, businesses, government entities and others against the latest fraud threats; and improves customer experience through real-time, fact-based decisioning.” 

Through a customizable, single API, organizations will be equipped with the following advances: 

• Refinitiv’s cutting-edge technology and access to an unparalleled real-time network of identity verification, authentication services and compliance screening
• Access to a holistic set of enrollment, payment, identity, compliance, screening, and mobile solutions built on a single platform
• Ability to proactively identify and mitigate both traditional and emerging risks, including payments, identity and vendor fraud; money laundering, bribery and corruption; as well as enforcements and fines
• Ability to address newer, more sophisticated fraud threats, including identity theft; synthetic identity fraud; true name fraud; account takeover; business email compromise; and others 
• And the capability to better attract and retain customers, safeguard their reputations, and protect supply chain and vendor relationships.

To learn more about the combined power of the EPIC Platform and World-Check, click here. 

Goal Group, the global fintech leader in withholding tax reclamation and securities class action recovery services, is delighted to announce that Vicky Dean has been promoted to Managing Director, EMEA and Global Head of Client Services with immediate effect.

As Managing Director, Vicky will have oversight responsibility for key functions and activities at the company’s EMEA headquarters including sales, client services and operations. The dual role reflects Goal’s newly centralised client services delivery model, designed to maintain excellence in service standards and promote consistency across EMEA, the Americas and APAC as the business enters a phase of strong growth.

Vicky joined Goal Group in 2014 and quickly progressed to senior leadership positions in both the EMEA and Americas businesses.

Stephen Everard, Chief Executive Officer, Goal Group, said: “Vicky’s dedication and meticulous work is often remarked upon by our clients. Her appointment to the roles of Managing Director, EMEA and Global Head of Client Services recognises the high standards she sets herself, her wide-ranging capabilities and outstanding contribution to our company over the years. Bringing the global management of our client services function under the remit of one Managing Director makes perfect sense as we win a growing number of new mandates and take on increasing volumes of business in both withholding tax reclaims and securities litigation recoveries.”    

Commenting on her appointments, Vicky Dean said: “I am thrilled to be appointed as Managing Director, EMEA in such an exciting and dynamic company. We look forward to further cementing and enhancing relationships through the global centralisation of Client Services, ensuring that we continue to exceed the expectations of our valued clients and that they receive nothing but the best. Goal Group is undergoing a period of rapid growth and I’m excited to be a key part of it.”

Bryan Gray, Brand Ambassador for Goal in the APAC region will report to Vicky, alongside the other client services managers across EMEA, the Americas and APAC.

Goal’s worldwide client base includes five of the top ten global custodians, six of the top ten global fund managers and all four US depositary banks.