The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network issued an advisory to remind financial institutions that updates the FATF made to their list of jurisdictions that have strategic AML/CFT deficiencies may affect their obligations with respect to these jurisdictions and that they should consider the impact these updates have on the institution’s risk-based approach.

On June 17, 2019, The Institute of Internal Auditors (the IIA) released an Exposure Draft (the Draft) on a study being conducted to review and modernize the Three Lines of Defense Model (3LoD). The Draft has been released for public comments from June 20, 2019 and September 19, 2019 and reflects the thoughts and analysis of a working group, chaired by Jenitha John, Vice Chairman of The IIA Global Board of Directors; and Chief Audit Executive, FirstRand Ltd.

More and more, regulators are examining AML and terrorist financing monitoring software solutions to see if they are tuned correctly; and citing financial institutions who fail to meet the regulatory standards. One issue for both regulators and these institutions is the creation of excessive volumes of “false positive” activity alerts, or alerts on activity that after evaluation, is not determined to be suspicious.

Every anti-money laundering (AML) program should be reviewed periodically to confirm that the program is performing efficiently and effectively. Analytics can play a big role in this review by providing new insights that support evidence-based decision-making.

When it comes to anti-money laundering (AML) transaction monitoring, financial services firms are under more pressure than ever to prove that the approach they are taking is working. Regulators want to see obvious evidence that firms are generating the right level of suspicious activity reports (SARs) for their size, geography, and business types, usually in the form of statistics and reporting. In turn, boards and senior management teams are now demanding to see this same information to be sure the firm is meeting its compliance obligations. As a result, AML transaction monitoring analytics are in more demand than ever before.