Banks and Building Societies

Anti-Money laundering for Banks and Building Societies

Prevent financial crime, ensure compliance with anti-money laundering requirements, and protect your firm’s reputation with SmartSearch. We provide tailored compliance and anti-fraud services for banks and building societies, giving you the peace of mind that all your AML requirements are being met.

Prevent money laundering and fraud

One of the key ways in which criminals launder money is through the UK’s financial services sector, meaning banks and building societies are at particular risk of being targeted by money launderers. dirty cash. Therefore, any banks or building societies that do not have robust risk-based anti-money laundering processes in place are at heightened risk of enabling serious organised crime such as trafficking in people, drugs, and weapons, and funding terrorism. Banks and building societies that do not comply with their AML obligations face multi-million-pound fines and reputational damage. 

SmartSearch is a comprehensive all-in-one AML solution for banks and building societies, offering customer identification and verification  - including sanction and PEP screening - and ongoing monitoring via one simple-to-use platform. The platform is automatically updated to reflect any changes in AML regulations, enabling banks and building societies to easily and effectively mitigate the risks of money laundering, meet all their legal obligations, and protect their professional reputation, all from one place.

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A few areas we can help you with

Know your customer

You can identify and verify individuals and businesses in a matter of seconds, giving you peace of mind that your customers are who they say they are.

Easier customer onboarding

SmartSearch’s all-in-one system enables you to meet all your compliance requirements from one place - you can even automate your client onboarding processes via MVT technology for smoother and quicker customer onboarding.

Perform enhanced due diligence

Our system screens all checks for PEPs and sanctions, automatically completing enhanced due diligence on any matches to ensure you are meeting your KYC requirements.

Ongoing compliance

To ensure continued compliance, our ongoing monitoring service checks every customer daily and alerts you to any changes to their PEP or sanctions status to ensure you remain compliant.

Prevent Fraud

We offer a comprehensive range of anti-fraud services - including validation of IDs, bank accounts, mobiles and other devices and IP addresses as well as global fraud data monitoring to protect your from fraudsters.

Automatic audit trail

Our system automatically records all search results, giving you a full compliance record and ensuring your firm is always audit-ready. We can even batch upload and retrospectively check existing customer databases to close any compliance gaps.

Tailored AML Products For Banks And Buildings Societies

From identification and verification, to screening, monitoring and record keeping, we offer the most reliable and robust AML, compliance and fraud prevention solutions on the market and each product in our suite of solutions can be tailored to your firm’s individual compliance needs.

Our cloud-based software can be integrated into your existing systems, making customer onboarding simple and removing the risk of error through re-keying of customer data. We also have a fully integrated SmartSearch app which enables users to run comprehensive checks from any handheld device, delivering a pass or fail result in seconds, so you can onboard customers remotely safe in the knowledge all results will be recorded in the central database.

WHO WE WORK WITH

What kind of banks and building societies do we work with?

Building Societies
Retail Banks
Commercial Banks
Investment Banks
Online and Challenger Banks
Co-Operative Banks
Savings Banks
HEAR IT FROM OUR CUSTOMERS

Our technology is used by 32% of Building Societies in the UK

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SmartSearch has been a real blessing to Kingdom Bank over the past few years. Their use of AML checking and incorporating of PEPs and Sanctions screening is great and has assisted the Bank with any ongoing or enhanced due diligence that has been required. Sam Hind Compliance Officer

Frequently Asked Questions

  • How do Banks and Building Societies detect money laundering?

    There are three stages in the money laundering process, but it is most easy for Banks and Building Societies detect during the first stage, which is placement. During the placement stage, cash is broken up into smaller amounts, and moved around in an attempt to put distance between the money and its illegal origins. Some launderers may make deposits in shell bank accounts at this point – and these can be easy for financial institutions to spot, if they appear in a large lump sum or a suspicious number of smaller deposits. Shell bank accounts are also used in the second stage of money laundering – layering – where the money is passed through multiple transactions and movements to “wash” it, but this is often harder to detect.

  • How can Banks and Building Societies prevent money laundering?

    Banks and Building Societies in the UK can prevent money laundering by following the AML regulations from the FATF, and meeting the guidelines from the FCA. That means implementing a risk-based approach, with an extensive screening process including KYC, PEP and sanctions checks, as well as ongoing monitoring and Enhanced Due Diligence on any matches. KYC checks specifically can be used to prevent the creation of shell accounts by those who have a history of financial crime, as they enable you to verify the identity and reputation of your clients and customers, before you enter into business with them.

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