The remittance services sector in the UK continues to grow. There is demand from multiple diasporas to send money home, and to extended families. And there’s an equal growth in remittance service providers, catering to the needs of varied customers.
Some money transfer businesses may have started as small ventures, perhaps from the back of a shop or a spare room. Some might have begun by using informal payment networks. But whatever the origin of the business, and whatever their customer profile, there’s one thing that unites them: the need to ensure they meet the requirements of financial regulatory compliance.
Compliance is an Absolute
For anyone running a remittance service, the need for compliance will be well understood. What can be less obvious, however, is the best way to approach the challenge. Compliance requires numerous checks to ensure that money changing hands is not part of a money laundering scheme, sent to terrorists, or involved in some other financial crime. Plus, there’s identity, and the risk that details provided may have been stolen or re-sold, or both.
It’s clear that making all the required checks manually quickly becomes unmanageable when a business starts to grow. Hence the corresponding choice of packages that do the work for you. Automation is the obvious solution. It makes processes faster and cheaper. And in financial services this alone results in increased demand. Where before, remittances via banks were cumbersome and expensive, and Hawala (informal) transfers remain dependent on individuals, cross-border transfers made via remittance services are quick, generally inexpensive, and delivered by an impersonal system. They are more cost effective and more reliable.
Finding the Best Tree in the Forest
Many compliance products do the same things. They make required checks, they might provide ongoing transaction monitoring, they alert operators to anomalies, and – theoretically – provide evidence of compliance. But many are not flexible. Not all are comprehensive. High transaction volumes and the demand for speed require something better.
The essential service is one that’s customizable to the needs of each business. That means specific risks can be identified accurately (by client or group, for example) and managed effectively. But even when things do fall into place, there’s still another stumbling block: is it user-friendly? If it isn’t, the investment is wasted. So, the ideal service is not only effective and flexible, it’s also easy to use.
Leading the pack is Compli, from Essiell Compli.
Comprehensive needs to be Easy to Use Too
Compli is unique in the compliance field, in providing everything that’s required and more. It has some worthy competitors but few can match it for its comprehensive functionality, protection against financial crime, and ease of use. As well as delivering automated KYC checks, and following through with transaction monitoring, its customizable rules engine enables tailoring to the needs of each business. And, it’s easy to use. In particular the dashboard and case manager bring a breath of fresh air.
They are intuitive and configurable, and provide in-depth understanding of customers. There’s a quick response to flagged activity, so human decisions can be made based on accurate data. The Case Manager is a tool that eases workflow and genuinely enhances the quality of analysis. Underlying the whole process is an always-ready audit trail. So, if you’re looking for a service that delivers compliance in a coherent, accessible manner, Compli is a good place to start – and quite probably the best.
By Declan Morton, staff writer at Essiell Compli.
