Future of KYC Compliance: Recent Episodes

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The world of KYC and AML compliance is changing fast. Regulators are cracking down, new laws are being passed, and criminals are getting more and more savvy every day. The Future of KYC Compliance podcast is dedicated to helping compliance professionals succeed by getting ahead of the curve and preparing themselves and their organizations for the trends and technologies that will shape the future.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/12eceygkzzspiif/Gregory%20Dellas.mp3?dl=0

In today’s episode of the Future of KYC Compliance, Ian is joined by Gregory Dellas, Chief Compliance and Innovation Officer at ECOMMBX. Gregory highlights the importance of staying current with regulatory changes, being one step ahead of criminals, and properly utilizing technology in the fight against financial crime.

Gregory, founder and Chair of the ACAMS Cyprus Chapter, is a certified CAMS and GCI certified trainer, a Fellow of the International Compliance Association and a long-standing member of the Anti-Money Laundering Professionals Forum. He shares how these organizations enabled him to join forces with fellow anti-financial crime professionals to achieve efficient and effective KYC and AML compliance.

Topics discussed:

What drew Gregory to a career in AML and fighting financial crime
The reasons why organizations fail to implement successful AML programs
AML and financial crime related risks Gregory has seen emerge in the recent years
The common reporting mistakes that are now starting to occur because of the shift in the way we engage with clients
Trends Gregory has seen AML professionals have used to try and remove data error points
The primary challenges faced by frontline compliance teams and institutions
The importance of having the right culture within an institution in KYC compliance
Advantages of joining AML organizations
Key pillars that underpin an effective AML compliance program
Gregory’s advice for professionals to win the battle against financial crime

In this episode of the Future of KYC Compliance, Ian joins Nelson Yiannakou, Regional Money Laundering Reporting Officer ( APAC ) at Revolut, as he shares his views on the current state of AML obligations and compliance in Australia. We touch on some of the bigger financial crime monitoring challenges faced by regulators today, and Nelson gives us a fresh perspective on the importance of having a sound AML environment and a robust financial crime prevention system.

Topics discussed:

Nelson’s three-decade long career in financial risk management and financial crime prevention
A brief intro to Revolut and the services it offers
Financial crime challenges Revolut has faced globally
Nelson’s view on the state of AML obligations and compliance in Australia today
The importance of investing in financial crime prevention capabilities and technologies
Why financial crime syndicates always seem to be one step ahead of regulators
Specific challenges faced by digital-only fintech companies
What excites Nelson most with his work in financial crime risk management
Nelson’s advice for KYC and AML professionals to ensure their success in the field

In today’s episode of the Future of KYC Compliance, Ian is joined by Joel Lange, General Manager of Risk and Compliance at Dow Jones.

Topics Discussed:

What drew Joel into the world of financial crime prevention
The scope of Joel’s work with Dow Jone’s risk and compliance management
Key AML and financial crime risks we have today
The shift from KYC to KYB
Primary trends in risk management and financial crime compliance
Main challenges financial organizations face in mitigating risks
How to maintain a successful AML program
The importance of continuing education and training for organizations to effectively navigate the compliance sector on a global scale
Common regulatory compliance mistakes made by organizations
Joel’s tips and advice to ensure full AML compliance

Investigative journalism has been key to discovering illicit financial flows, tax heavens and the challenges of reforming the international financial infrastructure.

Every investigation and every leak brings progress in the search for transparency, it raises the bar for financial institutions, and the pressure against financial crime actors.

In today's episode we are joined by Will Fitzgibbon, a senior reporter with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Will has reported on ICIJ projects, including West Africa Leaks, Paradise Papers and Panama Papers and he also coordinates ICIJ's partnerships with journalists in Africa and the Middle East.

Topics discussed in this episode:

What drew Will to the world of investigative journalism.
Views on the current Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Why stopping and reforming the international financial infrastructure has been a challenge.
How Will sees the role of investigative journalism in the context of financial crime.
Top discoveries from the Pandora Papers.
What has changed for better and for worse since the Pandora Papers.
How financial crime control fines should broaden up to include other actors beyond financial institutions.
What attributes financial criminals look for when they choose jurisdictions.
Why there will always be loopholes in the financial sector that bad actors can exploit.
3 Pieces of advice for industry professionals.

Technology is a double edged sword. On the one hand it gives compliance professionals better tools to catch the bad actors, but it also empowers criminals to perpetrate their actions successfully.

Today we are joined by Dan Stipano, Partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell, who has extensive regulatory and enforcement experience including more than 30 years at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).

Dan helped us understand how our anti-money laundering frameworks have been struggling mightily to keep up with developments and we reflect on the challenges to improve in our fight against financial crime.

Topics discussed in this episode:

The dual effect technology has over financial crime
Why information sharing is critical to combat financial crime
How regulatory expectations are much higher today
How anti money laundering frameworks are outdated on a global scale
How sanctions can shape AML compliance programs
How sanctions are not political agnostic
The real obstacles for information sharing and what we can do to overcome them
3 Pieces of practical advice for compliance officers looking to combat financial crime

Whether it is laws, regulations, guidance or issuances, the processes that make our regulatory regimes more effective are slow. By the time we reach consensus and refine our standards, criminals are doing something else.

Lauren Kohr has been in the anti-financial crime sector for over 16 years. She currently serves as Senior Director of AML at ACAMS, the largest international membership organization for Anti-Financial Crime professionals.

In today's episode, she helped us reflect on how AML professionals experience the compliance process, the role of AI in AML, and the B-side of disclosing sensitive financial crime information.

Topics discussed in this episode:

How 9/11 drew Lauren to the world of financial crime to help prevent illicit financial flows.
How the work of a compliance officer changes in small and large financial institutions.
The value of public-private initiatives to prevent financial crime.
Reflections on typical financial penalties.
The importance of bringing NGO and Academia sectors to the fight against financial crime.
AML tech: where we are standing and where we need to go.
The challenges of training AI in AML.
Big takeaways from recent financial crime investigations.
3 Pieces of advice for AML and KYC professionals looking to succeed in the future.

We've repeatedly seen how large financial institutions are fined for AML compliance failures and breaches that other organizations have experienced in the past.

What's the role these sanctions truly play in preventing financial crime recurrence?

In today's episode, we are joined by Anton Moiseienko, a Lecturer at the ANU College of Law who not only has been studying the legal and policy aspects of targeted sanctions but also has extensively researched on emerging technological risks and the financial footprint of cybercrime.

Topics discussed in this episode:

What drew Anton to the world of financial crime.
How the nature of financial crime has changed in recent years.
Why targeted sanctions are ineffective to prevent financial crime.
Implication of the use of cryptocurrencies on compliance officers' work.
How blockchain analytics can help with financial crime prevention.
Other types of cybercrime and the challenges these impose over financial institutions.
Reflections on the most recent AML fine cases.
Obstacles for cross border collaboration and international standard setting.
Advice for AML/Compliance professionals.

Edmund McCormack is the founder of Dchained and has been in the crypto-blockchain space since 2011.

From a starting point where lack of transparency was a fact, the industry has evolved now to a state where it's extremely difficult to move money without being traced.

How can we leverage blockchain, biometrics, and other types of technology to advance our AML and KYC capabilities?

In today's episode, Ed joined us to debunk a few myths around the role of cryptocurrencies in financial crime and to open the discussion on what blockchain technology can bring in to the fight against bad actors.

Topics discussed in this episode:

How Ed came to the world of crypto and how the space was it like in 2011.
How law enforcement agencies are leveraging blockchains and their transactional nature.
What the future of cryptocurrency regulation is.
Biggest misconceptions associated with cryptocurrencies.
Obstacles to launder money in the crypto space.
The role of cybercrime and top areas of concern.
How bad actors exploit areas of weakness where the spotlight is not being shown.
How the regulatory landscape will progress and why it could start with stablecoins.

Although it's truth that some of the most well established terrorist organizations tend to mirror organized crime and money laundering techniques, there are many misconceptions around the level of innovation, involved mechanisms and detectability of these activities.

Jessica Davis is the President of Insight Threat Intelligence and in today's episode she deep dives into the world of terrorist financing, what we are lacking to detect this type of crimes, and how terrorist financing activities differ depending on where bad actors are operating.

Topics discussed in this episode:

How Jessica got into the world of CTF.
Why AML gets more attention that CTF
How AML and CTF differ in terms of scope, mechanisms involved and detectability.
Why Jessica wrote 'Illicit Money Financing Terrorism in the Twenty First Century'.
How terrorists manage, use and hide their illicit money.
What trends she has seen evolve in terrorist financing.
Terrorist's real use of cryptocurrencies.
What technologies the financial sector is leveraging to combat terrorist financing.
What we need to know about insider threats.
Other resources financial institutions can deploy to track terrorist financing.

What are the skills that make a compliance officer successful?

Willem Wellinghoff is PMA Media Group's Global Chief Compliance and UK MLRO Officer and he achieves over 15 years of experience in the financial services, financial crime and technology sectors.

What makes Willem's insights unique is the combination of his compliance skills with the lessons learned from mentoring startup accelerators and bringing these lessons to his daily job.

If you'd like to know how you can help making compliance engaging and interesting in your organization, this is the episode for you.

Topics discussed in this episode:

Willem's background and career synopsis.

The state of money laundering and financial crime prevention.
How technology benefits and challenges the work of compliance officers.
How financial crime has evolved along with financial services digital transformation.
Sanctions and fines as a deterrent to financial crime.
How accelerators are opportunities to look at innovation and technology coming out in the market.
Lessons learned from mentoring new fintech businesses.
Skills for compliance officers to be successful in the future.

The financial industry is plagued with systemic failures and new ways of committing crime seem to be accelerating rather than decelerating.

Are we doing enough to prevent fraud and money laundering? Or are we building solutions that are mainly focused on detection? Is there a one-to-one correlation with the amount of money that you spend on these tools? Or is it rather more important the type of technology you are using?

João Moura is the CEO of Fraudio, an Amsterdam based tech company that leverages AI, vast data sets and real time signals to detect and prevent customer/ merchant initiated fraud and money laundering.

In today's episode, he joined us to reflect on how we can be more effective at combating financial crime.

Topics discussed:

What sets Fraudio apart from than their competitors
The state of money laundering and fraud prevention
Why we need to democratize access to detection tools
The impact of digitalization on financial crime
An overview of the three generations of fraud and AML solutions
Regulatory frameworks in the fight against fraud
Why compliance has transformed into a box-ticking exercise
3 Pieces of practical advice for AML and fraud prevention professionals.

If financial criminals are always one step ahead, what should organizations be doing to catch up with the bad actors?

Today's guest has one simple yet powerful answer: working together. If fraudsters and financial criminals are cooperating with each other by sharing technology, analytics and information to succeed in their schemes, wouldn't it be logical for organizations to do the same?

Dave Excell is the founder of Featurespace, a company using machine learning and Adaptive Behavioral Analytics in the fight against complex fraud and money laundering. In today's episode, he shines a light on why organizations should join their efforts to prevent financial crime.

Topics discussed in this episode:

How the world of money laundering has evolved over the years
How effective regulatory engagement is at present
Why we should enable information sharing between institutions
The potential dilemma between data privacy and data sharing to prevent financial crime
How AML and fraud prevention teams are working much closer
What the world of financial crime prevention will look like in the near future
Key points organizations are looking to improve in the fight against financial crime
3 Pieces of practical advice for fraud prevention and AML professionals

Technology is taking the lead in the world of KYC compliance and onboarding clients, safely, is and will remain a challenge.

What are the tools criminals use to fabricate an online persona? How do we make sure we are onboarding a real person when we ask for a selfie?

Vanessa Williams is the Global Chief Compliance Officer and AML/CFT Officer of CrossTower, a digital asset capital markets firm with offices in Bermuda, the US, and India. In today's episode, Vanessa touches on the most pressuring challenges when onboarding clients and how technology is creating benefits as well as new risks to prevent money laundering and other forms of financial crime.

Topics discussed in this episode:

Digital finance and cryptocurrencies and money laundering.
KYC compliance challenges in a mobile world.
How criminals have developed tools to fabricate an online persona.
The role of regulators and the difference between jurisdictions.
Why institutions are being fined in spite of colossal investments in financial and regulatory technology
What financial crime prevention will look like in the next few years.
The benefits of the blockchain to follow assets
How automation can help to mitigate risks and put focus on the most important alerts

Fraudsters and financial criminals operate globally and the only way to fight this network is with a network.

Tracy Manning has over 25 years of experience driving data strategy, innovation and growth efforts within companies like AT&T, Cox, Twitter, Cincinnati Bell, and GroundTruth. She is now Director of Financial Crime Compliance at LexisNexis Risk Solutions.

In this episode, she shines a light on the challenges that KYC compliance teams have to catch up with current market trends and to move from controls that are largely manual, retroactive, and fully reliant on physical identity.

Topics discussed in this episode:

How the controls related to KYC have not kept pace with changes in the marketplace
The influence of digital adoption and transaction acceleration on new financial risks particularly sanctions risks
The burden that alert volume and false positives exert on compliance teams
How senior management understands the role of data in financial crime prevention and how they are integrating data into their strategies
How banks and financial institutions are doing at implementing KYC processes
Advice to compliance teams to future-proof their practices and what they should do to meet regulatory requirements
Physical and digital identities: the importance of understanding the linkage between these two

Megan Prendergast Millard has an outstanding record in the world of AML and financial crime compliance.

During her almost 15 years at the New York State Department of Financial Services, she supervised investigations of licensed institutions in a wide range of areas including BSA/AML, OFAC sanctions, market manipulation, virtual currency as well as all other banking and insurance matters. She was the recipient of the Superintendent’s Award in 2012, 2016 and 2017 for her work on investigations including the Standard Chartered Bank, Société Générale and BNP Paribas for U.S. sanctions and anti-money laundering violations.

As Senior Managing Director at Guidepost Solutions, she is dedicated to helping design and develop effective BSA/AML and financial crime compliance programs that also deliver a best-in-class customer experience.

Topics discussed in this episode:

Megan’s background in the world of financial crime and her experience working for the New York State Department of Financial Services
Types of financial crime in small and large enterprises.
How terrorist financing has changed over the years
What criminals look for when targeting banks and financial institutions.
The role of regtech and regulators to close the gap on the biggest weaknesses the financial system has.
Cryptocurrencies vs Fiat currencies: opportunities and regulation needs
How firms have evolved after enforcement actions and financial penalties
The challenges of holding senior management accountable
The contribution of whistleblower programs in the fight against financial crime
3 Pieces of practical advice to those actively engaged in AML.

Bala Kumar is Chief Product Officer at Jumio, an end-to-end identity verification and eKYC platform that helps businesses protect against fraud, money laundering, and financial crime.

Bala brings over 20 years of product innovation experience to the world of KYC compliance. A true believer in the power of data, he offers insights on the role of product and technology in addressing the problems of financial crime.

Want to know how your company can free up some time, stress less over compliance and penalties, and work more on your core business? Then this episode is a must-listen.

Topics discussed in this episode:

Products and technical solutions to enhance risk management
Fraudsters' skills, behaviors, and way of thinking
What can be done to fight fraudsters more effectively?
How identity technology is making it more difficult for fraudsters to complete their schemes
How leveraging data allows identifying patterns that indicate what a good or bad customer looks like
Challenges for long-established financial organizations: legacy systems and siloed business units
The main reason behind companies' penalties and poor compliance
Senior management understanding of financial crime technology
What defines a successful technology solution to fight financial crime
Why having the right onboarding process helps companies save effort and invest more time in their core business

Sherbir Panag is the chair of Panag & Babu, an internationally acclaimed and highly respected Compliance and Investigations Practice.

Sherbir's experience in defending multinational companies and conducting internal investigations in matters involving criminal and regulatory proceedings has earned him the reputation of a "brilliant lawyer" and an "amazing problem solver".

These matters have involved allegations of bribery and other misconduct under Indian and foreign anti-corruption laws such as the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, U.K. Bribery Act; financial and regulatory fraud; procurement fraud; infrastructure fraud; violation of sanctions laws; and violation of corporate governance and corporate policy norms.

Today's episode is a deep dive into corporate white-collar crime, compliance, and governance issues by one of the best experts in the field.

Topics discussed in this episode:

Sherbir's background and the work Panag & Babu is doing
How legal systems and law practice have evolved in India over time
How disruptive economic events lead to corporate criminal misconduct and changes in compliance policies and procedures
India's approach to money laundering cases compared to other countries
Reasons behind the low rate of global white-collar crime convictions
The awareness shift on compliance and governance matters that’s occurring among corporate leaders
Practical advice for senior and corporate management.

David Schwartz is a lawyer by training with more than 30 years of experience in the banking world. He is the President and CEO of the Florida International Bankers Association (FIBA), a nonprofit trade association dedicated to fostering the growth of international banking through education, advocacy, and networking with a strong focus on compliance.

David's trajectory and his deep knowledge of the international banking landscape give great insights into today's problems and challenges for financial institutions and what he sees as raising in the near future.

Topics discussed in this episode:

FIBA's mission and emphasis on reaching out beyond borders and stopping money laundering at its source.
What challenges financial institutions are facing today
Complexities of the regulatory system
Financial penalties: effectiveness and international approaches
Regulators and their focus on bank and financial senior management
Why innovation is important in financial services
How collaboration is needed across small and medium organizations
The role global networks and cybercrime will play in money laundering and financial crime in the near future.
How education is vital to prevent financial crime

John Cassara began his 26 year U.S. government career as an intelligence officer during the Cold War. He later served as a Treasury Special Agent in both the U.S. Secret Service and US Customs Service, where he investigated money laundering, trade fraud and international smuggling. He was an undercover arms dealer for two years. Assigned overseas, he developed expertise in Middle East money laundering, value transfer and underground financial systems. Concerned about trade-based money laundering, he invented the concept of Trade Transparency Units (TTUs). He also worked six years for Treasury’s FinCEN and was detailed to the Department of State. Mr. Cassara's final assignment was with Treasury's Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (TFI). Since his retirement, he has lectured in the United States and around the world on a variety of transnational crime issues.

He has been a consultant for government and industry. He is on the Board of Directors of Global Financial Integrity. He has testified numerous times as an expert witness before Congressional committees. Mr. Cassara has authored numerous articles and five books, including Trade-Based Money Laundering: The Next Frontier in International Money Laundering Enforcement and the 2020 release of Money Laundering and Illicit Financial Flows: Following the Money and Value Trails.

Join our CEO, Ian Henderson as he finds out from John:

How terrorist financing has evolved in the past few years.
What were the most impactful experiences from his days as a special agent and how did these shape his path as an AML and terrorist financing expert.
What metrics matter when evaluating our success to combat money laundering.
What can we do to combat illicit financial flows.

Money Laundering and Illicit Financial Flows: Following the Money and Value Trails

Kevin Sullivan, CAMS, CCI spent 21 years with the New York State Police, where he saw the correlation between crime and money laundering on his first detail in undercover narcotics. He followed the money moving to a major crimes unit which led to an assignment with the FBI led Hudson Valley White Collar Crimes Task Force. For his last 9 years with the State Police Kevin was assigned to the New York HIFCA (High Intensity Financial Crimes Area) of the ICE led El Dorado Task Force in Manhattan, where he was the NY State Money Laundering Investigations Coordinator.

This is one of the largest AML task forces in the world consisting of members from the FBI, ICE, US Secret Service, DEA, Postal Inspectors, NYPD, NYSP, Manhattan DA and US Attorney. High profile organised crime and terrorist financing were the usual case load. It was here that Kevin became a lead instructor for ICE’s Operation Cornerstone providing a liaison between private financial institutions and law enforcement.

Kevin’s education and certification includes a masters degree in Financial Crimes Compliance Management from Utica College of Syracuse University, a Micro-MBA from the University of Buffalo, Leadership Program from Cornell University, Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS), Certified Anti-Money Laundering Professional (AMLP), Certified Cybercrime Currency Investigator (CCI).

Kevin was the founding co-chair of the NY chapter of ACAMS. He also helped develop and teaches the CAMS exam prep course, Train the Trainer course, and numerous other ACAMS courses including Transaction Monitoring, SARs, Fraud, Know Your Customer, Risk Management and Investigations.

Join our CEO, Ian Henderson as he finds out from Kevin:

How he describes the state of AML compliance today at the majority of organizations he works with
How he has seen AML compliance training evolve over the past 5 years
What he most commonly sees organisations get wrong about AML compliance
What’s the future of financial crime going to look like
What three pieces of advice he has for professionals working at banks to prevent money laundering?

Tim qualified and worked in the litigation department of what is now the City law firm, Dentons before joining the Standard Chartered Banking Group, where he held a number of senior operational legal and compliance positions in London, Singapore, India and the UAE.

Tim now divides his time equally between Lessons Learned Ltd, his award-winning company specializing in the provision of integrity and financial crime business education and consulting services to an international client base, particularly for boards, senior management teams and staff in high risk business units and CDDPro Ltd, an AI start-up delivering intelligent customer onboarding and remediation solutions.

Tim is a member of the EBRD’s panel of experts on Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing and the author of “Countering Terrorist Finance: A Training Handbook for Financial Services” and “Mastering Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing”, the 2nd edition of which was published by the Financial Times in January of 2020.

Join our CEO, Ian Henderson who finds out from Tim:

How he describes the state of compliance training today
How he has seen compliance training evolve over the past 5 years
What he most commonly sees organisations get wrong
What is the future of financial crime going to look like
What are three pieces of advice he has for Senior Managers at banks looking to better train their staff.

Mastering Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing: A Compliance Guide for Practitioners

Countering Terrorist Finance: A Training Handbook for Financial Services

Graham has worked in financial services for the past twenty years, latterly providing subject matter expertise to a number of high-profile banks in relation to their financial crime control frameworks. He also works closely with a large number of investigative journalists helping them to identify and write about organised crime and corruption including both the FT and Berlingske (Danish newspaper) on the Danske Bank scandal and the ICIJ on the FinCEN Files.

Graham regularly speaks at in-house and public events to raise awareness of the close links between financial crime and the organised criminal gangs and corrupt individuals who are responsible for so much of the dirty money entering the financial system. He also works with a number of NGOs (Global Witness, Corruption Watch, Transparency International) to help advocate for changes in policy at both a national and international level.

Join our CEO, Ian Henderson who finds out from Graham:

What he thinks of the state of money laundering today
How he has seen the way criminals launder money evolve over the past 5-10 years
What methods of money laundering he has seen a rise in the past years
What he thinks UK banks are doing at preventing money laundering
How he would summarise what the future of money laundering prevention will look like in the next 3-5 years
What are three pieces of advice he has for professionals working at banks to prevent money laundering.

Bradley Hope is the co-author of Billion Dollar Whale and Blood and Oil. He spent seven years at the Wall Street Journal’s offices in New York and London. Before that, he covered the Arab Spring from Cairo, Tripoli, and Beirut. He is a Pulitzer finalist and a winner of the Gerald Loeb Award for International Reporting.

Join our CEO, Ian Henderson who finds out from Bradley, the man, who uncovered one of the biggest financial scandals of all time:

Where did the idea for writing Billion Dollar Whale come from?
When it comes to how they went about money laundering, what did you learn that surprised you the most?
What role did banks play in enabling those behind 1mbd?
The 1mbd scandal led to the biggest AML-related fines in history, do you think this is enough to deter financial crime?
What advice would you have for AML and KYC professionals working at banks to prevent financial crime?
What’s next for you and your career?