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Get a Better Handle on Regulatory Compliance and Fraud Prevention by Moving to Zencos AML as a Service

Financial Crimes

Craig Willis

08/26/2021

Hero

When you’re a compliance officer at a midsize bank, AML efforts can feel like the bane of your existence. You need an efficient solution that allows your organization to avoid the fines and bad press associated with failing to meet regulatory standards. But given that fraud protection constitutes an expense with no direct associated revenue, many organizations are reluctant to invest in its capabilities.

Unfortunately, every week seems to bring more news of an embarrassing breach or compliance lapse in the industry. Money Laundering finances have been shown to finance a variety of criminal activities including

  • cybercrime
  • foreign and domestic terrorist financing
  • transnational criminal organization activity
  • drug trafficking
  • human trafficking and human smuggling
  • proliferation financing.

The stakes are too high to treat your AML solution as a low priority.

Advances in cloud environments and solutions like the Zencos AMLaaS solution powered by SAS, the #1 rated AML provider in AP, are allowing more organizations to find robust, secure answers to their AML needs. However, devoting internal resources to effectively manage this critical aspect of your business grows more difficult every day. Rather than struggling to keep pace with an evolving threat landscape, you can turn to a vendor and deploy a flexible solution that’s tailored to your needs

Migrating to the Cloud Eases the Burden of Data Security

Security has long been one of the biggest hurdles for financial institutions to clear when considering shifting their AML processes to the cloud. Transaction data is highly sensitive information from a legal and organizational perspective. Any IT team in the industry has good reason to support keeping data and AML systems wholly under their organization’s control.

However, your ability to manage an AML solution in-house ultimately comes down to scale. A top 10 global financial institution may, if it chooses, decide to store its information in the cloud. But it also has the capacity to operate, and maintain in-house infrastructure and commercial AML solution. Mid-market banks, casinos, and financial technology companies (fintech) may not have the resources to absorb those same costs.

Fortunately, both cloud vendors and the Zencos solution have security capabilities that exceed what most midsize institutions can manage in-house. Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and Amazon’s AWS constitute three of the biggest cloud vendors in a rapidly growing sector. Data security is a top priority for every organization. But working to secure large amounts of information at scale is far more effective than attempting to tackle the issue on your own.

For example, Microsoft has thousands of clients who store their data in the cloud through Azure. Your institution doesn’t have the IT resources of Microsoft, which makes keeping pace with security updates and technology upgrades that much harder. But you also don’t have the ability to distribute security and maintenance costs across all your customers.

Rather than needing to develop, test, and update your own security system to keep pace with financial criminals, you can rely on the expertise of your vendors.

Cloud Storage Combined With Zencos AMLaaS Delivers Faster Time to Value

Once your cloud environment is in place, you need to incorporate the Zencos AMLaaS solution to monitor transaction data. You could dedicate resources toward developing and implementing your own in-house solution. But that approach requires a massive effort in time, software development, and considerable expertise with cloud configurations as well as the details of how your organization functions. Given the complexity involved, implementing an in-house commercial solution could, and often does, take years to complete.

The cloud-based AMLaaS solution from Zencos skips these complications by allowing your compliance officers to access its interface over the web. Rather than waiting for your software to be configured and installed, it’s ready for your team that much faster. Plus, your institution’s transaction data gains an additional layer of protection from the Zencos AMLaaS solution. Once your compliance stack migrates to the cloud, its operations run more efficiently and securely.

For many organizations, a fast time to value is critical. Once you’ve been fined for falling out of compliance with fraud protection, regulators often incorporate a limited window of time to resolve the issue. If you work with Zencos, you can collaborate with a data partner to implement a robust solution in a few months.

Along with gaining a full-featured application that suits your institution, you can incorporate new technologies such as machine learning to streamline activity monitoring and reduce false positives. Without an aaS solution, your organization will never be able to deploy something of the same caliber in the same amount of time.

Zencos AMLaaS Provides Flexibility in Your Fraud Protection Capabilities

A cloud migration constitutes a considerable investment for any organization. But freeing your IT teams from solely managing your storage infrastructure and security offers considerable benefits. Plus, cloud storage offers your firm further savings by nature of its virtual infrastructure.

Flexibility is one of the core benefits involved with migrating to the cloud. With on-premises storage and AML efforts, your organization needs to purchase physical storage that will accommodate your estimates of peak capacity. Even if you only need that amount of computing power during specific periods, you’re responsible for those costs from the beginning.

With a cloud provider, you only pay for the storage you need. If your business changes and sees an influx of new customers or transaction activity, you can quickly scale to the level you need. Rather than needing to buy new hardware and install it at a storage facility, you work with your vendor to quickly expand or contract your capacity.

Cloud applications also readily accommodate the distinct needs of non-traditional financial institutions like casinos and fintech firms. Though organizations such as Square or PayPal may not manage conventional banking processes like deposit data, they can incorporate the monitoring and investigation capabilities they need through a SaaS vendor.

Zencos AMLaaS Solutions Free IT Teams to Focus on Your Business

Once seen as a cutting-edge option, cloud-based solutions are gaining traction among financial institutions needing a better way to combat money laundering. Spurred by the need to optimize resources during the pandemic, adoption of cloud-based solutions is only expected to grow in the years ahead.

For small- to midsize financial institutions, the potential value associated with such a shift is two-fold. For one, your solution remains up-to-date with technological and financial crime trends through consistent updates and improvements provided by your vendor. And two, your IT team is freed from the demands of managing your platform’s security and functionality.

AML efforts require time, experience, and expertise to remain effective. With these demands off their plate, your department can focus their efforts on generating value for your clients. In other words, the team can work on optimizing the aspects of the business that create revenue.

As every institution works to stay ahead of rapidly changing technology and constantly emerging threats, you’re better off moving to an AMLaas Solution.

Zencos AMLaaS powered by SAS is a fully managed service that helps organizations meet their Anti-Money Laundering regulatory requirements. The proven processes, infrastructure, software, and out of the box functionality allows for quick time to market and establishes a framework that can be built upon.

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