NEW YORK/LONDON– A new report lays out the many emerging threats that governments and financial institutions will face in 2021, along with prescriptive recommendations for implementing best compliance practices.
The report, The State Of Financial Crime 2021, from ComplyAdvantage, a tech company that provides financial crime detection solutions, is based on research administered in November and December 2020. Interviews were conducted with 600 C-suite and senior compliance decision makers across North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific, with the respondents representing enterprise banking, investments, crypto, insurance organizations, and fintechs.
ComplyAdvantage said the report delves into the most important financial crime trends that compliance officers are most concerned with in the coming year. Specifically, these trends include increased fraud related to COVID-19 relief; risk vulnerabilities related to inconsistencies in global AML and counter financing of terrorism (CFT) system; the growth in sophistication of computer and mobile-enabled cybercrimes via payment systems; the continued use of sanctions as a tool of first resort and more, the company said.
The Findings
Among the findings:
* SARs filing was on the rise with 74% of respondents saying they filed more SARS in 2020 than the previous year
* 93% of respondents stated that real-time AML risk data would improve their compliance operations
* Cybersecurity and third party risk management were noted as organizations’ biggest compliance-related pain points in 2020. With 54% of respondents ranking cybersecurity as a top pain point
* 62% of respondents plan on upgrading their legacy systems in 2021
* 54% of respondents plan on replacing or upgrading their transaction monitoring system in 2021
‘Increasingly More Aggressive’
“Due to the massive economic, political and social disruption brought about by COVID-19, international crime syndicates, rogue nations, global terrorists and cyber-criminals have become increasingly more aggressive," said Charles Delingpole founder and CEO of ComplyAdvantage. “Therefore, we felt it was imperative to prepare compliance officers and their teams for the potential onslaught of financial crimes driven by nefarious organizations."