The Future of Financial Crime Compliance

The financial services sector has to tackle the compliance conundrum - manage profitability while keeping compliance top of mind. Increased competition from new entrants has also dialed up the need for financial institutions to accelerate innovation with new products and services. Capturing and retaining customers remains a constant. Yet the evolving nature of banking competition and the onslaught of the fourth industry revolution that demands more innovative business models, together continue to push the boundaries of the future of financial crime compliance.

Much thought is warranted on whether compliance capabilities need to be reshaped since financial crime is a major risk for financial institutions. To continue to defend against financial crime, innovation by financial institutions to sharpen their capabilities remains key.

This whitepaper will first describe the criticality of the financial services sector’s role in fighting financial crime. It would then list the manifold opportunities and considerations of using technology within financial crime compliance.

In the previous whitepaper (Volume 1) entitled “The case for artificial intelligence in combating money laundering and terrorist financing”, Deloitte and UOB started a journey to examine and share collective perspectives on the use of innovation to make financial crime compliance more effective. The use of Artificial Intelligence (“AI”), Machine Learning (“ML”) and Robotics Process Automation (“RPA”) was analysed, taking reference from UOB’s collaboration with a Regulatory Technology (RegTech) solutions provider to develop a proof- of-concept (POC) for its Anti-Money Laundering systems and test it in a sandbox environment within the Bank. The pilot was a success. It resulted in greater accuracy in identifying suspicious accounts and transactions. The solution’s ability to reduce false positive alerts enabled UOB compliance officers to streamline their investigations of suspicious cases and use the time saved on higher-value work.

This second volume examines the continued journey of UOB to shift the dial in financial crime compliance.