Company thrives as demand soars for tech to fight fraud and money laundering
Specialist anti-money laundering software firm, SmartSearch, has reported record annual growth.
The expansion has been driven by a surge in demand for its online identity verification and due diligence platform.
The Ilkley-based company increased business by 23% during 2021, with turnover year-on-year rising from £11.8m to £14.5m. During that period, subscribers grew from 5,012 to 5,874, and the number of employees nearly doubled, increasing from 109 to 181.
Managing director, Martin Cheek, said: “These record results for 2021 come in the context of a 77% increase in turnover at SmartSearch over the past three years.
“This growth reflects a surge in demand for our state-of-the-art technology, especially from regulated companies, as they seek an effective solution to the dramatic rise in attempted fraud and money laundering since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We are now focusing on building upon this growth, and SmartSearch’s strategy for moving the business forward will be driven by our new CEO Guy Harrison, who has joined us from Dow Jones.”
SmartSearch launched its electronic anti-money laundering (AML) platform in 2011, and since then it has further refined its technology.
Accolades the company has received for its work include a Queen’s Award for Enterprise. It was also recently chosen to provide customer verification by Alto, which is part of Zoopla and provides cloud-based software for estate agents.
