Watch Anti-Money Laundering Compliances Sink

September 25, 2015

With a title like “AML-A Challenge Of Titanic Proportions” posted on Attivio metaphoric comparisons between the “ship of dreams” and icebergs is inevitable.  Anti-money laundering compliances have seen an unprecedented growth between 2011-2014 of 53%, says KPMG’s Global Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Survey.  The costs are predicted to increase by more than 25% in the next three years.  The biggest areas that are requiring more money, include transaction monitoring systems, Know Your Customer systems, and recruitment/retention systems for AML staff.

The Titanic metaphor plays in as the White Star Line director Bruce Ismay, builder Thomas Andrew, and nearly all of the 3327 passengers believed the ship was unsinkable and the pinnacle of modern technology.  The belief that humanity’s efforts would conquer Mother Nature was its downfall.  The White Star Line did not prepare the Titanic for disaster, but AML companies are trying to prevent their ships are sinking.  Except they cannot account for all the ways thieves can work around their system, just as the Titanic could not avoid the iceberg.

“Systems need to be smarter – even capable of learning patterns of transaction and ownership.  Staff needs more productive ways of investigating and positively concluding their caseload.  Alerting methods need to generate fewer ‘false positives’ – reducing the need for costly human investigation. New sources of information that can provide evidence need to come online faster and quickly correlate with existing data sources.”

The Titanic crew accidentally left the binoculars for the crow’s nest in England, which did not help the lookouts.  The current AML solutions are like the forgotten binoculars and pervasive action needs to be taken to avoid the AML iceberg.

Whitney Grace, September 25, 2015

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph

 

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