I know I can be something of a broken record when it comes to the power of partnership and shared expertise, but a meeting of minds last Thursday looks like proving me right. The venue was the beer garden at the Sun Inn at Richmond. The outdoor location allowed Colin Digby, Ralph Pecker, Gabriel Ruhan, Tony Winslade, Will Garton-Jones,...
Khumo Motsisi heads up the biz.Clarency department in charge of implementing our stringent AML/ATF operations. Here she shares a recent blip from her busy radar screen. One of the advantages of putting so much automation in place is that it frees up more time to do things manually. That might be an unexpected consequence, but it's...
Never work with animals or children. I'm used to the latter - I work with Bob and Sam remember - but in this case it was the animal element that interfered with plans. We were aiming for our second Dog Walk Interview. Tarryn, however, had other ideas. She put a nose outside, detected an unacceptably low temperature, gave that look...
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which insures most, if not all, of America's leading banks, has invited comment on a proposed rule that would modify the requirements for FDIC-supervised institutions to file Suspicious Activity Reports. At this stage it's an information and opinion-gathering exercise, and therefore...
As meeting indoors is now strongly discouraged, we took Sam Evans and Bob Blower to an open field and listened in. After editing out the reminders to stand further apart, we were left with a good solid thirty seconds. The plan now is to do a series of these, as Bob can rant on for far more hours than can be fitted in one attention...
Why have one blockchain when you can have two? Our biz.Clarency platform for international trade is set to launch officially on 29th December 2020. It's one of only a handful of fully developed blockchain-enabled business solutions outside the crypto-currency space. At its core lies InterlockLedger's radical rethink of immutable...
So the European Council is to meet to consider whether AML/ATF rules should be harmonised across the EU. Personal views on Brexit aside, this feels very much like a validation of one of the criticisms of the Council: that of discussing the concept of a potential conference to decide if something should be done. Ministers have expressed...
In case you missed it, Global Initiative has published a challenging article about FinCEN documents leaked to BuzzFeed. Gabriel Moberg suggests that money laundering is going on with the knowledge both of banks and regulators. Gabriel's article is here. He makes a persuasive case, though I'm slightly worried by the vagueness of some...
It was always our intention, from the original whiteboard sessions, that biz.Clarency's underlying data handling would use blockchain technology. Its immutability lends itself perfectly to creating a trusted audit trail, and its security - when we started out - was undoubted. That was before we began to see stories in the press of...
According to BIS in its article New correspondent banking data - the decline continues at a slower pace, the number of active corrspondent banks fell by about 3% in 2019. Compared to the 22% decline between 2011 and 2019, this is interpreted as a slowing of the trend. I'm not sure I fully understand the maths here, as by my...
Despite mounting difficulties and spiralling non-compliance penalties, global remittances grew by 10% in 2018. The increase slowed in 2019, with the final figure expected to be 3.7%. But a slower increase is still an increase; international remittances continue to grow, reaching US$715 billion last year. More than three-quarters of this...
The concept that any business's main differentiator is its employees is so over-used that it's virtually a cliché. Every company will boast that its most important asset is its people, but is that statement backed by hard facts? That's not to belittle the essential human factor, but rather to question the sincerity...
The introduction of low-interest marketplace lenders (MPL) schemes in the UK has benefited consumers and SMEs, bringing lower loan rates, high approval rates and quick money disbursement - albeit with a low level of customer verification. Given the highly regulated, ordered environment of the United Kingdom, it's tempting...
The global banks are caught between a rock and a hard place, with increasing penalties for compliance failures to be balanced against the spiralling costs of the due diligence required to stay compliant. It's no surprise that many choose to abandon sectors and regions that pose an uncommercial blend of risk, reward and onboarding...
Summary: FIs have been fined $26 billion in the last decade for failing to comply with AML compliance laws amp; regulations The FMI industry is experiencing high customer acquisition cost with low revenue growth and reduced customer acquisition Financial terrorism and identity theft have become rampant necessitating higher ...
Summary: Three million cases of identity theft and fraud, worth $1.48 billion, were reported in 2018, which is an exponential increase from $406 million in 2017. Identity Resolution and selection of attributes, as per the complexity, is crucial in allowing determination of an individual’s identity. The...
The registration of CognisSys as a Mauritius company was no mere flag of convenience. This small group of islands is set to take a leading role in world trade, and we're excited to be part of it. In November, we will be delivering keynote presentations and guidance to a British trade delegation which focuses on connecting UK fintechs...
For nearly two decades, the world banks have been withdrawing banking relationships with countries which they regard as high-risk. Let me be clear that I'm not condemning the global banks for closing their correspondent banking relationships with high-risk regions. No one could question that many poor-quality or genuinely pernicious...
Relations between Mexico and the USA have rarely been at a lower ebb. The present administration has galvanised feelings against Mexicans working in the US, even though they rank only third in immigrant numbers, behind China and India. Mexican workers, of whom there are around 12 million working legally in North America, pay billions...
There’s a widespread belief that the increasing use of digital funds transfer will rapidly make cash redundant. While it’s certainly true that card payments and online systems have reduced the usage of cash as a percentage of transactions, the demand for banknotes has actually increased faster than the total amount of spending...
It's a big world, with plenty of room for good business. It doesn't have to be an uphill struggle; all you need is the right support, and the trading advantages that will make it easy for your customers to deal with you.
You're in complete control of your data, including choosing who can access it - and which elements - on a case-by-case business. It's just a question of how much you want to be more competitive, how much you want your business to fly.
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