French Picnics to Transaction Monitoring: Defining Your Needs

I’m supposed to be writing a blog about transaction monitoring but instead, I’m thinking about sunshine. More specifically, I’m thinking about sitting under a tree, somewhere in the south of France with a baguette, some fresh goat’s cheese and a bottle of chilled rosé.  

The difference between my daydream and what I need to be doing is similar to selecting and implementing a transaction monitoring system. (I mean we all know it’s not really, but humour me.) 

I know what I need from my next holiday. I have a set budget. I have friends who are heading off to the Maldives for amazing scuba adventures, and some other friends who are planning a safari in Tanzania. Both sound amazing, but both are out of my budget this year. Also, I don’t want a long flight. 

I also talk to lots of AML professionals who are looking for a Transaction Monitoring solution but have started their search by checking out what others are using, instead of assessing their own risk and requirements. Don’t get me wrong – your selection process needs to cover due diligence and references, but it’s important not to be wowed by a product or service which offers features you don’t need. There’s no point in paying for a safari if you’re terrified of lions.  

Likewise, if you’re not dealing with huge transactional volumes, do you really need a product with AI? You DO need to be able to manage your false positive rates, but there are other systems with other ways of addressing this. Jade ThirdEye for example, offers you a rules effectiveness report which you can run as frequently as you want, and the system includes a sandbox, so you can tweak your rules and run them against your live data as many times as you need to, so you can assess the impact of changes. Managing your false positive rates and ensuring you are addressing your financial crime risk. 

So today’s moral is to assess your needs first.  

• What are your MUST-HAVE requirements?  
• Do you need a system with built-in case management and workflow? 
• Do you need the ability to quickly change your rules to meet changing risks? 
• Do you need segregated reporting for different business entities? 
• Do you need integrated customer screening? 

Once you’ve established your MUST-HAVE requirements, then you can move on to the fun stuff – the NICE TO HAVES.  

Once you have your requirements together, then talk to suppliers. Share your needs with them – they will all have a development roadmap and it may be that items on your NICE TO HAVE list are features coming in a future release. If not, they may be willing to develop new features because if you are asking for them, other prospects are likely to want them too. In fact, discussions like this can indicate a supplier who is willing to work in partnership with you – a very promising start to a relationship. 

After a difficult year, my MUST-HAVE holiday requirements this summer are peace and quiet, warmth, cheese and wine and a tree to nap under.