In the covid pandemic era, there has been a bigger than ever threat towards financial crime, with opportunists taking advantage of the coronavirus pandemic and the circumstances surrounding it. Now, firms need to be more vigilant when it comes to their anti-financial crime (AFC) processes. We take a look at the existing and emerging fincrime threats within the AFC space and steps banks and financial institutions can take in order to combat these.
Existing threats
Threats towards banks and FI’s have been existing before the pandemic took hold of the industry, and it would appear that many of these threats have yet to be addressed. Money laundering has been rife for many years and financial criminals ensure that they are always a few steps ahead. This bears a challenge for organisations needing to continually keep updating their internal systems to check for inefficiencies that need to be addressed. Issues concern the lack of effectiveness for identifying money laundering through screening and monitoring tools.
Tools such as FCGuard, Contineo FRS financial crime compliance solution, allows you to seamlessly onboard, monitor, and screen all your customer relationships and transactions in real time. Organisations can maintain a full audit and track all data flows and user actions across the board with confidence using FCGuard.
Transaction volumes
There has been a surge in digital transactions due to the pandemic, with the transaction volumes outweighing the analysts resources for monitoring them. This can cause a threat with organisations and the quality control used to check each transaction.
In addition, there has been an increase in the use of digital technologies, along with a rise in online fraud, scams, and security breaches. The prevalence of Covid-19 has created a scenario of insecurity that is inviting fraudsters to exploit the crisis situation by extracting or laundering money and by creating vulnerabilities.
Governmental and law enforcement action
With any suspicious activity reporting (SAR), governmental bodies and law enforcement agencies need to get involved to investigate the report further. However, due to a lack of capacity and a growing disconnect between people and resources, the official bodies have become overwhelmed with investigations.
The lack of ability to digest, analyse and take action against these SAR’s can become very problematic for the banks and FI’s with their identified threat not being actioned. It is reported that less than 1% of money laundering leads to any kind of enforcement action.
How can Contineo FRS support?
Our team consists of a number of specials and subject matter experts who are constantly working to address threats faced by banks and financial institutions. We provide a wide range of services to help you with transaction monitoring, reporting suspicious activity and ensuring your internal systems are up to date and working efficiently, while complying with regulatory standards.
Our team will be happy to give you a free consultation on our services and solutions to help you fight against the ever emerging financial crime threats. Simply email [email protected] to speak with one of the team today.
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