WHITE PAPERS

The financial sector is witnessing a definitive trend towards adopting Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions in the cloud. This shift is crucial for combating financial crime and delivering first-class services. However, the criticality of the service provided and the sensitive nature of customer data exchanged request a cautious transition and careful provider selection.

Our white paper "BANKING ON THE CLOUD, A PARADIGM SHIFT FOR FINANCIAL CRIME COMPLIANCE" explores how embracing SaaS in the public cloud is essential for ensuring competitiveness and excellence in financial crime compliance.

Neterium has developed several cloud-based services, accessible through a standard API, allowing our clients and partners to achieve excellence in compliance while delivering impeccable service to their customers.

Contact us for more information https://www.neterium.io/contact-us/

Jack Welch once famously said: "Speed is the new currency of business."

This adage has never rung truer than in the rise of instant payments.

The last few years have seen a seismic shift in the payment landscape, with instant payments emerging as a dominant force. Instant payments allow for the transfer of funds between accounts in seconds, exceeding the limitations of traditional payment methods.

With over 60 markets now equipped with live instant payment infrastructures, the adoption rates are remarkable. Systems like the UK Faster Payments, which pioneered instant payments back in 2008, processed over 4.5 billion transactions in 2023 alone. While primarily focused on domestic transactions, initiatives like RT-1 and TIPS are also paving the way for cross-border instant payments.

However, as with any innovation, instant payments bring their own set of challenges, particularly in financial crime compliance. The need for sanctions screening amidst the rapid flow of funds poses significant hurdles for compliance teams. Deciding which payments to screen and implementing the appropriate technology to handle the sheer volume within tight timeframes are critical tasks.

The debate over which instant payments should undergo sanctions screening is ongoing, with regulatory bodies like OFAC advocating for a risk-based approach. European initiatives, such as the new instant payments regulation, aim to streamline sanctions controls while facilitating seamless transactions. Yet, policy decisions are just one piece of the puzzle. The technology underpinning sanctions screening must also evolve to meet the demands of instant payments.

Factors like throughput, latency, efficiency, flexibility, and holistic transaction analysis come into play. Legacy systems are ill-equipped to handle the speed and volume of instant payments, necessitating the adoption of new screening technologies.

While consumers and businesses will directly benefit from this new payment instrument, it also comes with significant challenges for financial crime compliance teams in terms of how to handle the related sanctions screening aspects. These include deciding which of these instant payments should be screened (based on each bank’s specific context, risk appetite, and policies) and implementing the appropriate technology solution to efficiently process the expected large volumes within the very limited time allowed.

Since its inception in 2001, sanctions screening has been a complex and multifaceted challenge for financial institutions. Recent estimates reveal that the global financial community invests a staggering $30 billion annually to combat financial crime, with only a 1% success rate. Evidently, traditional approaches are falling short, and a fresh perspective is needed.

Neterium, in collaboration with its partner GSS, has released a White Paper, offering their collective #expertise on the subject of sanctions screening.

Titled "From utilities to industry-initiative: how a centralised service finally solved the financial community's sanctions screening problem" this paper promises to shed light on innovative solutions.

Through this collaborative effort, we aim at enhancing compliance and fostering a more secure and efficient financial ecosystem.

For further insights into GSS and Neterium, visit: https://www.neterium.io/insights/blog/gss-selected-neterium-as-its-exclusive-watchlist-screening-technology-partner/

Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) is on the rise. An increasing number of non-bank players (e.g., e-commerce platforms, retailers) are now embedding financial services such as payments, Buy Now Pay Later, wallets or lending in their offering to further improve their customer experience and maximise the value they can capture. And it does not stop there: some banks are also increasingly interested in using BaaS as they see an opportunity to focus on what they do best….

When speaking with analysts having to resolve sanction screening alerts, the first complaint you hear is usually about false positives: “There are too many alerts”, “The system always returns the same hits”, “we spend our time accepting hits we already accepted”, “why can’t the system just get smarter?”. To these analysts, we want to say: “We hear you”. And we might have good news for you. Let’s dive into a new approach that could really make alert handling better, safer and faster…

The payments landscape has dramatically evolved over the last couple of years. Hundreds of new fintechs – supported by billions in venture capital – have emerged with a mission to deliver a radically better customer experience for payments. Incumbents did not stand still: they reacted by modernizing their existing “rails” and embracing new payments methods or instruments…

In the past, to start a technology business such as a fintech, you had to build -at great cost- every single component that was required to deliver the service: user interface, back-office, operations… but also infrastructure, network or security. Today, all this changed radically, and fintech founders can rely on cloud services, open-source components and APIs to build their product.…

For many Fintechs, compliance with financial crime regulations is an iterative and painful discovery journey. While banks have been increasingly exposed to these regulations for over two decades, most Fintechs only got created over the last few years and their initial focus was – rightfully– on offering a distinctively better customer service and experience…

For many Fintechs, compliance with financial crime regulations is an iterative and painful discovery journey. While banks have been increasingly exposed to these regulations for over two decades, most Fintechs only got created over the last few years and their initial focus was – rightfully– on offering a distinctively better customer service and experience…

According to recent Celent estimates, the financial community spends around 30 billion USD every year at global level to fight financial crime. All players (financial institutions, fintechs and increasingly corporates as well) massively invest at individual level to comply with increasingly complex and far-reaching regulations, often with unintended negative side-effects in terms of end-customer experience and pace of innovation. And yet, the outcome is still really disappointing. It is estimated that only 1% of financial crime is actually prevented….

For many years, Transaction and Counterparty Screening has been a regulatory expectation in most countries as part of the broader Anti Money Laundering (AML) and Counter Terrorist Financing (CTF) regulations. It applies to all financial institutions but also increasingly to fintechs and corporates, which – beyond the compliance expected by their local authorities or their banking partners – also rightfully aim at making a positive ethical contribution to the whole community by helping fight financial crime…