It is undeniable that the world of technology is moving at such a fast-tracked pace, that criminals are always finding innovative ways to avoid detection when carrying out illicit activities and transactions. As such, scrutiny of transactions is an essential part of preventing and combating money laundering. Conducting transaction monitoring through automated systems has become fundamental in today’s era since the high value and volume of data and transactions have rendered manual transaction monitoring highly inefficient and, many times, ineffective.
Thus, nowadays, the main concern is not whether a subject person has a system in place, but rather whether the system, together with the transaction monitoring processes which the subject person has adopted, is efficiently and effectively identifying suspicious activity and preventing such activity from taking place or re-occurring. Whilst on today’s market, one can find several transaction monitoring systems boasting the latest features, subject persons usually fail to consider that having a system is not the end, but the means to an end. More often than not, it is a common misconception that having a system in place is enough to capture suspicious activity.
In reality, even some subject persons that have adopted transaction monitoring systems, repeatedly struggle with effectively meeting transaction monitoring requirements and encounter a number of challenges which relate to:
Irrespective of the transaction monitoring software in place, the operation would need to collect correct, complete or updated KYC data to be used as the benchmark for the system to assess against.
A shortcoming in this process will lead to transaction monitoring efforts producing inaccurate results and poor quality alerts, including excessive volumes of false positives, which become difficult and time-consuming to manage. This also creates a risk of subject persons missing out on relevant alerts which would warrant analysis and potential reporting to the relevant authorities.
At PwC Malta, we have a fully-fledged AML/CFT team with significant local and international expertise, which can help you ascertain that you are effectively meeting legal and regulatory requirements whilst making the most out of your investment in technological compliance systems.
Through our collaborations, we can also suggest compliance solutions which allow subject persons to address AML transaction monitoring requirements by automatically identifying suspicious behaviour in real-time or on a scheduled basis while minimising false positives using AI technology. Moreover, we can also assist you with a large array of services which include: carrying out KYC data remediations or assessing whether this is needed; calibrating your detection rules in a tailored manner in line with your operation’s needs; carrying out system process audits to ensure that you are making the most out of your investment; amongst others.
Contact us to set an appointment and discuss how we can be of help.
