On Thursday October 6th, CubeMatch Ireland and the Fintech Payments Association of Ireland organised a panel discussion: “FinCrime – Emerging Technology and International Strategies?” with industry experts.
Three experts joined Mike Hampson, CubeMatch Head of FinCrime Practice:
- Harold Perez – AIB Head of Financial Crime Systems, Data Modelling, and Intelligence,
- Chris Anderson – CEO Financial Crime Intelligence,
- And David Donachie – IFDS Ireland Head of Compliance.
After an introduction and warm welcome from Mike Hampson, our panellists began their discussion, offering much food for thought.
Our speakers addressed a broad range of topics relating to FinCrime. They examined the following themes which were part of a wider discussion:
With regard to the Fund Industry, while there is a broad adoption of technology to support entity and payment screening, the Customer due diligence process is still very manual. This is mainly due to the wide range of Investor jurisdictions and types that need to be covered. While the Central bank and the EBA encourage the use of innovative solutions for AML/CFT, firms must ensure that:
- 1) They understand the impact of the technology on regulatory compliance.
- 2) They are confident that compliance will be achieved from the date of its introduction.
- 3) It is auditable by an independent 3rd party.
- 4) They can undertake an annual compliance risk assessment on the solution.
The growth of Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a means of tackling Financial Crime has also been encouraged by regulators, and banks are making significant progress in this field. However, the legacy platforms and operational functions within large organisations still operate in silos, rendering the recognition of potential crime difficult or impossible. Nevertheless, new AI solutions processing large volumes of data are starting to make the identification of suspicious patterns and activity easier. There was a question of whether or not regulators themselves can keep up with the new technologies. Also, their audit ability of potential cases identified by the AI solutions came into question. Importantly, it was felt that the new tools would enable operators to focus less on “False Positives” which would inevitably free up time to focus on real cases of suspicion.
Silos across organisations, relating to information sharing among market participants, regulators, and law enforcement agencies, was another theme of the discussion. A number of jurisdictions across the world, in particular Singapore, are clearing the way to enable organisations to collaborate as suspicious activity is suspected. At the moment, legislation such as GDPR make this difficult, but legislation is being brought forward to make it easier. Platforms are also in development which will enable organisations to collaborate to identify potential criminality.
Moving into 2023, the key themes will be the developments around the New European Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA), to be announced in 2023 and operational by 2026; Progress on Information sharing in Singapore and the growth of AI tools.
We would like to thank everyone who attended this insightful discussion, as well as the FPAI for their support.
To learn more about the FPAI: https://www.fpai.ie/