Stopping the flow of funds to terrorists and other sanctioned entities – without breaking the bank
As the use of cloud and digital technologies grow in the financial industry, they are transforming how banks, insurance companies, and their customers interact. Over the coming months, we’ll be blogging about some of the groundbreaking ways that Microsoft and partner technologies are transforming financial services. Today’s blog post features Temenos, a Microsoft partner helping banks use cloud technology to dramatically improve the efficacy and efficiency of sanction screening while reducing costs.
Financial crime is on the rise[1], with sanctioned individuals and terrorist financiers using increasingly sophisticated means to move money. Governments around the world are fighting back. Now, more than ever, it is vital for every financial institution to have effective, efficient, and flexible sanction screening that helps maximize protection and minimize impact on the business.
Managing financial crime effectively has never been more important
With every highly visible terror attack around the globe, regulators escalate the priority of finding and stopping the flow of funds to sanctioned individuals and groups. Unfortunately, bad actors are increasingly sophisticated, with a recent study showing that only 50% of money laundering or terrorist financing incidents were detected by traditional system alerts[2]. Financial institutions must screen all of their payments – as any slip ups can be catastrophic. Record-breaking fines are happening more frequently, and can devastate a business – BNP Paribas paid a $9 billion fine[3]. Regulators are cracking down harder, with 20% of financial services firms having experience enforcement actions by a regulator[4]. The personal stakes are high, as bank executives are often held liable by enforcement agencies for any failings.
The risks are too high for conventional sanction screening
Unfortunately, traditional screening solutions are not good enough in today’s digital world and demanding regulatory climate. Old screening engines often rely on centralized, on-premises infrastructure that is ill-suited to handle increasing transaction volume or the any place, any time nature of modern finance. Growing globalization also complicates compliance – banks need a screening engine that can follow laws in multiple jurisdictions. Traditional sanction screening can barely keep up with multiple watch lists that are constantly updated. The older, slower solutions present banks with a double-bind: either accept the high-cost of slow, disrupted transactions – which include many false positives and lost customers – or have a potentially catastrophic transaction slip through. The stakes are too high to trust outdated technology and traditional screening approaches.
It’s time for efficient, effective screening
With modern cloud technology, financial organizations don’t have to trade business agility for compliance. The speed, scalability, and flexibility of the cloud enable banks to maximize the efficiency of their transaction screening and grow limitlessly. Today’s cloud-enabled sanction screening engines can easily integrate with a bank’s existing software systems, and extend to work with additional anti-money laundering and other fraud management software. Configurable work flows and simplified watch list management streamline major components of the screening process, while ensuring “four eyes” (two operators) or more look over flagged transactions. Plus, with the right cloud solution, financial organizations can rest assured that they meet a broad set of changing regional and international compliance standards. Finally, cloud infrastructure often comes at a much lower total cost of ownership than operating and maintaining on-premises IT solutions. With global spending on compliance set to reach more than $8 billion in 2017[5], it’s increasingly important to leverage the cost-effectiveness of cloud screening to protect the business without breaking the bank.
Temenos Screen, built on Microsoft cloud technology, modernizes the sanction screening process to help enhance protection and reduce costs
Temenos Screen offers real-time processing and detection engines that are precise, fast, easy to configure, and simple to use. Screen offers much more than just fuzzy matching, with unique features like powerful lexical screening that continually evolve with every item screened – ensuring banks prevent terror and criminal financing with best-in-class tools. With the lowest rate of false positive alerts in the industry, the solution cuts costs with safe, accurate algorithms. Additionally, Screen’s intuitive alert management capabilities and seamless integration with multiple systems help streamline operations. Flexible configuration options enable agile, cost-effective implementation with ‘out-of-the-box’ customer and transaction screening.
Temenos Screen is built on the Microsoft cloud, enabling financial organizations to grow without geographic or digital limits. Microsoft’s cloud is the world’s largest hyperscale solution, used by 90% of the Fortune 500, and offers multiple deployment options that can be tailored to any business. Microsoft’s cloud meets a wide range of international and national compliance standards while maximizing transparency – so business know exactly how their data is handled and can understand all of the security, privacy, and compliance practices that protect their information. Temenos Screen offers industry-leading sanction screening built on a compliant, secured cloud with unmatched scale.
The results are real and powerful. UBS implemented Temenos Screen, easily customized to their IT system, and dramatically increased efficiency. Operators went from 4,000 to 9,000 hits reviewed per day, the number of processed hits improved by 250%, and the cost per screened message plummeted – cutting total cost of ownership by 50%.
Get started today
Temenos Screen transforms the efficacy and efficiency of reducing financial crime. Try the solution for yourself on AppSource today.
1 SAS, Combating Financial Crime: The Increasing Importance of Financial Crimes Intelligence Units in Banking, 2016
2 PwC, Global Economic Crime Survey, 2016
3 Wall Street Journal, Top Bank Settlements, 2013
4 PwC, Global Economic Crime Survey, 2016
5 PwC, Global Economic Crime Survey, 2016
