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In a recent joint webinar, “AML: Improving Compliance and Reducing Cost with AI,” experts in the field discussed newest innovations in the fight against financial crime. WorkFusion’s pre-built AML Expert Bots and Smart Process Automation (SPA) platform is used by leading banks and financial institutions to automate AML processes.
Speakers were Michael Lammie, a director from PwC’s Financial Crimes Unit; James Lawson, Director, Strategic Markets and a leader in WorkFusion’s AML efforts; and Mikhail Abramchik, WorkFusion SVP for Product, who leads the team who built the SPA AML package.
During the discussion, available on-demand here, several key points were made, which we are happy to sum up for you here. James also offered a detailed demonstration of one automated AML process, Negative News Screening. Additional questions asked during and after the webinar will be addressed in a follow-up blog, so check back soon!
8 important takeaways:
1) Crime uses cutting-edge tech, so shouldn’t you?
A root cause of AML compliance violations is that bad actors are overwhelming inadequate systems and technology. Traditional AML processes are manual, labor-intensive and hard-coded, which makes them rigid and difficult to adjust in response to a dynamic problem. By comparison, WorkFusion learning bots allow you to automate this work and continuously improve.
2) Manual work is a root cause for slowdowns, gaps and high costs
The tasks required for effective manual AML are time-consuming, repetitive and unfulfilling. Your employees can only do so well, so quickly, yet customers have high expectations for speed and teams are under pressure to conform to SLAs. Even at the highest-performing institutions, prevention is deficient, resulting in periodic breaches and thus incurring fines and other punishments.
3) The answer cannot be to hire more people
Due to the manual nature of previous solutions, a natural response to increased complexity was to hire additional staff, often offshore personnel. But this is outdated. Like PwC says: “As technology continues to rapidly evolve in the space, decades of proven labor arbitrage and shared services are no longer the most constructive approach.”
4) WorkFusion platform is agnostic & non-intrusive
Financial institutions and banks already have AML operations, delivered by various tools and processes. As these solutions develop over time, the IT and connections linking them are often rather complex. WorkFusion works with any existing processes, tools and people already in place — but with a focus on making them all more efficient, reducing manual work, and improving compliance.
5) Expert Bots accelerate automation, with flexibility
WorkFusion’s pre-built AML Expert Bots are set up to quickly start automating complex processes — yet each is still customizable. It’s like hiring a team member who’s already experienced with AML, but just needs a bit of extra training toward your specific needs to be fully productive.
6) AML includes many opportunities for automation
In addition to Negative News Screening (part of institutions’ KYC obligations, which was discussed and demonstrated in the webinar), PwC recommended many fertile opportunities to automate processes, including: Customer ID & V (identify and verify), Customer Risk Ranking (factor analysis), Beneficial Owner Analysis (identifying hierarchies and business relationships), and Customer Documentation (document collection and data extraction). Payment Sanction Screening and Source of Wealth analysis are also popular automation targets.
7) Explainable AI is more regulator-friendly
Financial crime units within institutions are risk-averse, in part because their decisions and actions must be auditable and transparent. Fortunately, WorkFusion offers various capabilities like Analytics, AutoQC and preventative controls to aid with process management and explainability. Regulators are now more welcoming to such innovations too. But don’t just take our word for it.
8) Benefits speak for themselves — instantly
Automation reaps short- and long-term benefits. Obviously, there are immediate hard results, such as 70% less manual effort… yet 3x coverage. For one global commercial bank using WorkFusion for Negative News analysis, the savings are multiple millions of dollars each year. In other banks that are smaller, more fragmented or less mature, with only a few FTEs focused on Negative News searches, they will still see ROI within a year and can expect steady scaling up in line with their business.
In addition, customers are experiencing softer benefits, such as better decision-making, higher employee satisfaction, flexibility to scale up and increased speed — all of which leads to greater compliance.
To learn more about WorkFusion and our AML solutions, email us at learn@workfusion.com.
Top 8 Lessons from PwC and WorkFusion’s Anti–Money Laundering Webinar was originally published in WorkFusion on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
Continue reading...
Speakers were Michael Lammie, a director from PwC’s Financial Crimes Unit; James Lawson, Director, Strategic Markets and a leader in WorkFusion’s AML efforts; and Mikhail Abramchik, WorkFusion SVP for Product, who leads the team who built the SPA AML package.
During the discussion, available on-demand here, several key points were made, which we are happy to sum up for you here. James also offered a detailed demonstration of one automated AML process, Negative News Screening. Additional questions asked during and after the webinar will be addressed in a follow-up blog, so check back soon!
8 important takeaways:
1) Crime uses cutting-edge tech, so shouldn’t you?
A root cause of AML compliance violations is that bad actors are overwhelming inadequate systems and technology. Traditional AML processes are manual, labor-intensive and hard-coded, which makes them rigid and difficult to adjust in response to a dynamic problem. By comparison, WorkFusion learning bots allow you to automate this work and continuously improve.
2) Manual work is a root cause for slowdowns, gaps and high costs
The tasks required for effective manual AML are time-consuming, repetitive and unfulfilling. Your employees can only do so well, so quickly, yet customers have high expectations for speed and teams are under pressure to conform to SLAs. Even at the highest-performing institutions, prevention is deficient, resulting in periodic breaches and thus incurring fines and other punishments.
3) The answer cannot be to hire more people
Due to the manual nature of previous solutions, a natural response to increased complexity was to hire additional staff, often offshore personnel. But this is outdated. Like PwC says: “As technology continues to rapidly evolve in the space, decades of proven labor arbitrage and shared services are no longer the most constructive approach.”
4) WorkFusion platform is agnostic & non-intrusive
Financial institutions and banks already have AML operations, delivered by various tools and processes. As these solutions develop over time, the IT and connections linking them are often rather complex. WorkFusion works with any existing processes, tools and people already in place — but with a focus on making them all more efficient, reducing manual work, and improving compliance.
5) Expert Bots accelerate automation, with flexibility
WorkFusion’s pre-built AML Expert Bots are set up to quickly start automating complex processes — yet each is still customizable. It’s like hiring a team member who’s already experienced with AML, but just needs a bit of extra training toward your specific needs to be fully productive.
6) AML includes many opportunities for automation
In addition to Negative News Screening (part of institutions’ KYC obligations, which was discussed and demonstrated in the webinar), PwC recommended many fertile opportunities to automate processes, including: Customer ID & V (identify and verify), Customer Risk Ranking (factor analysis), Beneficial Owner Analysis (identifying hierarchies and business relationships), and Customer Documentation (document collection and data extraction). Payment Sanction Screening and Source of Wealth analysis are also popular automation targets.
7) Explainable AI is more regulator-friendly
Financial crime units within institutions are risk-averse, in part because their decisions and actions must be auditable and transparent. Fortunately, WorkFusion offers various capabilities like Analytics, AutoQC and preventative controls to aid with process management and explainability. Regulators are now more welcoming to such innovations too. But don’t just take our word for it.
8) Benefits speak for themselves — instantly
Automation reaps short- and long-term benefits. Obviously, there are immediate hard results, such as 70% less manual effort… yet 3x coverage. For one global commercial bank using WorkFusion for Negative News analysis, the savings are multiple millions of dollars each year. In other banks that are smaller, more fragmented or less mature, with only a few FTEs focused on Negative News searches, they will still see ROI within a year and can expect steady scaling up in line with their business.
In addition, customers are experiencing softer benefits, such as better decision-making, higher employee satisfaction, flexibility to scale up and increased speed — all of which leads to greater compliance.
To learn more about WorkFusion and our AML solutions, email us at learn@workfusion.com.
Top 8 Lessons from PwC and WorkFusion’s Anti–Money Laundering Webinar was originally published in WorkFusion on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
Continue reading...