Secure back office solutions vital to countering fraud says eg boss
BACK Office Workforce Optimisation solutions are key to solving regulatory issues within the financial services sector, a leading Staffordshire businesswoman has said.
Organisations are currently on high alert for signs of money laundering. Alerts raised in the field or by detection systems need to be investigated in a timely manner to satisfy customer service levels or notify authorities.
Elizabeth Gooch, CEO of Dunston-based eg solutions, said: “Money laundering is the generic term used to describe the process by which criminals disguise the original ownership and control of the proceeds of criminal conduct by making them appear to have derived from a legitimate source.
“The processes by which criminally derived property may be laundered are extensive. Although criminal money may be successfully laundered without the assistance of the financial sector, the reality is that hundreds of billions of dollars of criminally derived money is laundered through financial institutions annually.
“The nature of the services and products offered by the financial services industry (namely managing, controlling and possessing money and property belonging to others) means that it is vulnerable to abuse by money launderers,” she added.
“Critical to this is the role that the back office can play in meeting the needs of corporate governance and compliance in the fight against fraudsters.”
She said that by using Workforce Optimisation solutions specifically designed for complex back office processing teams, organisations could monitor all tasks and process activity performed by investigative staff in real-time, enabling proactive interventions in the fight against money launderers.
The detection systems, processes and policies required to prevent fraud are increasingly supported by the IT vendor community with systems to support customer due diligence and identify suspicious transactions. Case management systems continue to be the focal point for the collating of information and decisions made.
“The consequences of being unable to monitor or detect non-compliant activity within business activity at an individual or enterprise level have rarely been greater. For many in the financial services sector the ability to provide evidence of compliance activity is vital, no more so than in the back office,” added Ms Gooch.
“With increasingly complex and regulated back office operations, it is essential to be able to demonstrate that individuals undertaking specific activities are fully skilled and competent in doing so. But the challenge many organisations face is how to effectively monitor real-time and historic activity to ensure that not only the right people – the eyes – but also the right number of people are involved in completing specific activities and the end-to-end business processes.”
