Working the output of financial crime monitoring can be a thankless task, especially if your system isn’t tailored to your business. I’ve been there and I’ve got the grey hair to prove it.
Financial crime experts around the world are currently ploughing through thousands of hours of false positive alerts. This may be the result of manual monitoring processes or due to a system which was bought and implemented years ago, where the ongoing maintenance has been too big a task to keep on top of. Either way, it’s demoralising and the more “noise” you see in the output of your monitoring, the greater the risk that a genuinely suspicious case will be missed.
A good monitoring system can breathe new life into tired analysts and investigators, so for their sakes there isn’t a moment to lose!
For this blog, I’m going to focus on building your business case to buy a new AML/Transaction/Financial Crime monitoring system. (I’ll revisit keeping it up to date and fit for purpose another day.)
So, firstly, who do you need to convince? Make sure you understand your internal procurement, IT and change processes. If you are going to present your business case to a formal committee, I’ve always found that if your paper is structured in a format that’s familiar and consistent with existing committee papers, it will be an easier sell.
You need to write your case clearly and simply. It sounds obvious but avoid acronyms or terms which may be unfamiliar to the readers.
Onto the content then. What’s your story?
Briefly introduce your project. Keep it to a couple of minutes of reading, but it should cover why it’s necessary and what’s required to complete.
This is often a summary of the key regulatory requirements and the risks associated with your business. Summarise how an automated system will form part of the controls to mitigate this risk.
What’s your vision? What are the benefits of your project and how does that tie into the organisation’s strategy?
Compliance with AML legislation may sound like a no-brainer to you, but make it clear to the reader that as well as keeping your MLRO out of prison, there are many more benefits; efficiency, cost savings, scalability and driving a better culture through an engaged workforce are just a few examples from the application of a good financial crime monitoring system. Not to mention the social impact of being a financial crime fighting ninja.
What do you need? You’ll have to include some detail on what’s required for your project. What resource is needed to implement, as well as what ongoing support is needed once the project moves into BAU? Consider how moving to an automated system will impact the whole business, not just your team, for example this could include a shift of resource from one department to another or freeing up valuable IT resource to support other strategic priorities.
Despite all the benefits that you know are waiting to be realised, you will still need to clearly outline the cost.
Present your research.
Which providers have you looked at?
What are the headline costs of each and what are their key benefits?
How have you chosen your preferred option?
Your choice may not be the cheapest option, so you will need to ensure the readers understand why you are making your recommendation.
It may be the ease and speed of implementation, it may be the simplicity of the system and therefore minimal ongoing training needs, it could be that a provider has extensive experience in your particular market or it could be a great cultural fit for your firm. Ideally it will be several of these, but make sure your readers get it.
If you have references or testimonials, now is a good time to include them. Here are some shameless examples from Jade ThirdEye customers:
“Jade ThirdEye does what it says on the tin. It is a very straightforward system to use. I think it’s fair to say it’s cost-effective from what else we have looked at and having a track record in the building society sector really does help us in terms of being able to reach out to others who have used the system. I would recommend Jade, a great product and company to deal with.”
Monmouthshire Building Society
“Jade ThirdEye helped us cut through complexity with a unified system for transaction monitoring and customer screening, replacing three legacy systems. The team helped us clarify and enhance our requirements during deployment and for several enhancements thereafter. Recently I requested a relatively complex enhancement that would have taken weeks with the legacy system and the Jade team responded, “we’ll have it done by the end of the day.”
FinClear
"We were very impressed with the level of support Jade ThirdEye provided during implementation, assisting with data integrity to enable a smooth transition from our old solution."
Scottish Building Society
Next up, it’s a good idea to present an outline of your project. You should think about:
- How long will the project take?
- How will requirements be gathered?
- How much support will be provided by the supplier?
- Does the supplier need to be on-site or can the implementation be completed remotely?
- How will you test the system?
- What training is needed?
- What implications/requirements are there for other business areas?
- What happens at go live?
Finally, it’s helpful to sum up your business case. What are you asking for? How can you make this decision easier? Remembering to keep it clear and simple:
- Why do you need to do this?
- What will it cost?
- What are the benefits?
- How will you do it?
- When should you do it?
Good luck!
If you’d like to talk to the Jade ThirdEye Team about how our system and service can help you manage your financial crime risk and what a JTE implementation looks like please use the form below to get in touch.
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