Combating Money Laundering

Money laundering is the introduction of illegally acquired assets into legal circulation while disguising their origin. Money laundering and international terrorism financing present a major challenge for banks and insurance companies. National and international laws and directives (Third EU Money Laundering Directive, USA Patriot Act, Bank Secrecy Act, FATF 40+9 Recommendations, …) are constantly being developed further to effectively counteract the changing typologies and methods used for money laundering and terrorism financing .

For financial service providers worldwide, therefore, an efficient and integrated research strategy is now becoming a crucial competitive factor. As well as compliance with legal provisions, other determining factors include flexibility and low cost-and-time overhead for implementing and adjusting the research strategy. This enables companies to effectively counter new developments in money laundering.
 

Risk-based prevention of money laundering
This flexibility and efficiency is provided by SironAML, the integrated anti-money laundering solution. The starting point for ongoing adjustment of the research processes is a reassessment of customer- and product-specific money laundering risks within the context of the enterprise-wide threat analysis. Preventative measures derived from this (IT research rules) can be independently created or modified by the money laundering/compliance officers in an intuitive rule editor in SironAML. Predefined standard research rules for compliance with FATF (Financial Action Task Force) recommendations, among others, are already integrated in the software.

Customer-oriented Case Management
Customer and transaction data is analysed in SironAML by means of individually definable research rules. All rule infringements are filtered out and forwarded to the integrated Case Management for further analysis by the money laundering/compliance officer. All suspicious transactions relating to a customer are bundled into a single alert, for subsequent analysis by the money laundering/compliance officer. This customer-oriented Case Management allows a considerable reduction in the number of money laundering alerts. Moreover, this central view of all suspicious transactions of a customer makes it easier to identify the connection between possible criminal actions.

Creating electronic suspicious activity reports (SAR)
SironAML supports the money laundering/compliance officer in the statutory duty to report a possible incident of money laundering and/or terrorism financing. For faster and more secure transmission of the SAR to the supervisory authorities, it can be filled in electronically on the system. SironAML provides templates for SARs in the respective country-specific format.

SironAML at a glance

• Satisfies the legal requirements for combating money laundering and terrorism : Third EU Money Laundering Directive, FATF 40+9, USA Patriot Act, Bank Secrecy Act, …
• Protects against damage to reputation and satisfies the ethical requirement of preventing money laundering and terrorism financing
• Rule editor for efficient and cost-effective adjustment of the individual, risk-based money laundering research strategy
• Predefined research rules for compliance with the minimum requirements (e.g. FATF 40+9) for combating money laundering
• Know your customer (KYC) : Ongoing plausibility checks on initial customer information (from the customer acceptance process)
• Customer-oriented case management for consistent documentation and analysis of money laundering cases
• Automated workflow for compiling SARs in country-specific format
• Creation of customer profiles: Transactions which deviate from the customer’s normal behaviour (customer history) are detected by SironAML and marked as suspicious
• Link analysis for visualisation of money laundering networks
• Fulfilment of the duty to preserve records through audit-proof documentation of all actions, activities and decisions
• Standardised interfaces to core banking systems