SAMOA Takes Center Stage in Global Financial Crime Fight with Cutting-Edge Data Analytics

Introduction

In a groundbreaking initiative, DataRobot recently participated in the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) Global AML and Financial Crime TechSprint, held at the FCA’s headquarters in London. The event brought together top minds from around the world to combat financial crime using innovative data analytics solutions.

Team Citadel’s Winning Solution

DataRobot’s team, “Team Citadel,” comprised of experts from Westpac, Citi, Privitar, Oracle, Bureau van Dijk, the FCA, and Companies House, took home the top prize in this highly competitive event. The team was led by Karan Jain, a renowned industry leader on B2B data sharing.

The goal of Team Citadel was to develop a state-of-the-art solution for anti-money laundering (AML) using data analytics and technology to make it more efficient for banks to share data and identify suspicious activities. Their prototype, named Citadel, centered around the new “discrepancy reporting requirement” contained in the EU’s pending statutory 5th Anti-Money Laundering Directive (“5AMLD”), which comes into effect in January 2020.

The Solution

The team was tasked with developing a solution to reconcile beneficial owner data from multiple banks and sources, including Companies House, to identify suspicious individuals and networks related to corporate clients. By reconciling this data, banks can better comply with regulatory reporting requirements and identify key risk factors that could indicate suspicious activity.

Using DataRobot’s machine learning capabilities, the team built a powerful model that can help investigators focus on entities most likely to be involved in suspicious activities. The model analyzed patterns in historical data to identify which entities are at risk of being flagged as suspicious, allowing investigation teams to prioritize their efforts more effectively.

Implications

The Citadel solution has far-reaching implications for the financial industry, enabling banks to become more efficient in their AML compliance and investigations. With hundreds of employees dedicated to manual case investigation, the team’s model can help free up resources for more focused and effective work.

Benefits:

• Helps banks efficiently handle new 5MLD regulation
• Provides new risk indicators to fight financial crime
• Enables SME customers to open bank accounts faster

Conclusion

“The FCA TechSprint is a great opportunity for the industry to collaborate together in the fight against financial crime,” said Karan Jain, visionary behind Team Citadel. “The solution will help banks efficiently handle the new 5MLD regulation, provide new risk indicators to fight financial crime, and help SME customers open bank accounts faster.”