This publication recently spoke to data solutions and consultancy firm BankersAccuity about such challenges as dealing with anti-money laundering laws and the requirements on Asian banks.

Editor’s note: This publication
has carried several recent articles about the importance of wealth managers
heeding the ever-increasing weight of anti-bribery and anti-money laundering
legislation. Asia is a region that, given its varied legal systems and history,
needs to be particularly mindful of these issues. (To view the sort of issues
that arise, click here.) Here, we speak to Simon Lemos, director, Asia Pacific, and David Pan, product manager, risk
compliance group, at
BankersAccuity.

Some background: In
the autumn of 2011, Reed Elsevier acquired the entire issued share capital of
Accuity Holdings from Investcorp, a global investment firm, for £343 million
($559.8 million). In a statement at the time, Accuity was described as a
“leading US
provider of online subscription-based data solutions for the financial services
industry which enable customers to maximize the accuracy of their banking and
payment transactions, and to minimize the risk of non-compliance with
government regulations in these transactions”. Accuity was seen as being a
“highly complementary business” with both Reed Elsevier’s Bankers Almanac and
the financial services business of LexisNexis Risk Solutions. So BankersAccuity
was born.

How have recent
anti-money laundering cases, such as those affecting Hong Kong/London-listed
HSBC, put a focus on such issues?

Lemos: “A lot of the cases now being reported on go back a
number of years. Compliance is still a relatively new thing for some of these
organisations. We are seeing historical breaches where organisations have
fallen short. We are committed to ensuring we deliver robust and fully
integrated solutions to banks and in a cost-effective way.” One issue for AML
compliance is what happens when one has joint ventures, as in China and other
countries, he said. “It needs a very clear approach and it needs to come from
the very top.”

“Senior management have taken some active decisions to
circumvent the system What has now happened is that banks are sitting up and
taking notice.”

David Pan: “This is also, in my opinion, a political tool or
message from the US to banks
that they their sanctions compliance [against Iran, etc] is not just a set of
rules but something they take very seriously.”

Asian trends?

Pan: He spoke of increasing pressure exerted by the
blacklist of poor AML regimes as ranked by the Financial Action Task Force, a
body set up by Group of Seven industrialised powers in 1989.

“It isn’t an enforcement agency but what it can do is make
life for certain jurisdictions difficult and challenging to do business in. If
you are on the FATF’s high risk list it makes it very difficult to facilitate
business there. It is forcing banks in these countries to impose their AML
controls and policies so they can get off this list,” Pan said.

“We are seeing more countries starting do something about
their AML policies,” he said, giving the example of Thailand where the country’s
central bank has moved to improve controls across the board and ensure all of
the nation’s banks act together. “We are seeing a similar drive in Vietnam where
the central bank is trying to procure data,” Pan said. Hong
Kong, meanwhile, enacted new laws relating to AML in April this
year, he said.

Lemos: “People looking at the data, analyse `red flags’ and
need to make a judgement call,” he said.

“All banks are looking at sophisticated software to have protections
for all their systems,” he said. Global challenges and increasing footsteps of
clients in emerging markets call for a system that is a standardized means to
achieve compliance.

What sort of patterns
of demand?

Pan: “It’s no mystery that Asia
is a growing economy in the face of slow or stagnate growth in other parts of
the world. With this growth of course comes regulations that must be adhered
to, from the FATF being ever a more the authoritative force in the fight
against Money Laundering and Terror Financing to increasing sanctions
enforcements, 2013 is a year that will continue today’s trend of increased
regulatory awareness.”

“And we see this trend from countries such as the
Phillipines moving to enact newer AML laws to the revised AML policies in Hong
Kong to the centralised efforts in Thailand and Vietnam, the region as a whole
is progressing towards more stringent standards, which means we have a lot of
work to look forward to,” he said.

Lemos: “Banks in Asia are
looking to put in screening systems or to improve the efficiency of what they
have already.”

How does
BankersAccuity work in this sort of space?

The firm has a Professional Services Group and advises and
guides banks on their own systems and processes, Lemos said.

“We have enjoyed good growth in Asia
and globally. Of course, integrating these two large organisations over recent
months has had its challenges but we are now reaping the benefits of being a
stronger combined organisation,” he continued. “We are seeing more big cases
hitting banks’ revenues and getting onto the front pages,” he said.