Assurance & advisory

Regulators are placing greater emphasis upon the importance of internal controls with assurance requirements becoming more and more embedded in many financial crime compliance frameworks.

Our services

Financial service organisations must have effective systems in place to combat financial crime. This includes well-defined policies and procedures, clear lines of defence, and above all effective staff training and awareness throughout the organisation.

We offer an independent assurance service along with advice on the design and operation of an effective financial crime control framework.

Our methodologies and tool kits have been refined and tested over many years with clients of various sizes. This enables us to adopt a tailored approach to engagements, speeding up delivery and lowering overall costs. They align with industry regulations, guidelines, and best practices.

We work with HR to design and deliver bespoke financial crime training programmes from Board-level down. We can also provide more hands-on guidance to your different business areas on specific financial crime related matters, including compliance with current sanctions and money laundering regulations.

Assurance

FCC programme audits covering governance, policies and procedures, risk assessments, controls, training, and MI reporting.
Conduct independent health checks and benchmark performance against industry best practice.
Independent assessment of trade finance sanctions screening process, including circumvention detection controls and OFAC reporting.
Determine effectiveness of end-to-end sanctions screening process, including OFSI reporting.
Review effectiveness of transaction monitoring processes including SAR reporting.
Produce comprehensive, independent assurance reports for third parties.
Full independent testing to demonstrate that screening software is working correctly.
Monitor payments for FTR, FATF R.16 and FATCA compliance.

Governance & risk

Design target operating models for enterprise-wide FCC governance across all Lines of Defence and business operations.
Develop governance, oversight and Three Lines of Defence Model processes.
Design and implement risk appetite frameworks.
Conduct enterprise-wide financial crime risk assessments.
Develop bespoke risk assessment software to assess inherent and residual financial crime risk.
Support internal risk and compliance functions to assess risk and test existing processes through gap analysis and/or bench marking.

Systems and controls that are purposeful, efficient and courageous in identifying suspicious activity are vitally important.

Mark Steward

FCA

Advisory

Build FCC frameworks, underpinned by policy, standards and procedures covering different financial crime risks.
Produce standards, guidelines and procedures for transaction monitoring and sanctions screening.
Design and uplift existing financial crime controls, including customer risk assessment, SAR reporting and controls testing.
Develop automated rules to eliminate false positives.
Supplement CDD and KYC due diligence.
Perform complex data analytics, trend analysis and data mapping on payment and customer account activities.