The survey of 300 financial crime decision makers working in the financial services sector in the UK, also found that on average, organisations spent £53 annually on financial crime defence for each customer relationship they have. Moreover, they refused an average of £90,240.77 and exited an average of £90,869.52 worth of UK customer relationships for financial crime reasons during the last 12 months.
The financial crime decision makers cited that employee resources in financial crime roles cost their firms an average of £180,000 per year. At the end of their respective reporting periods, respondents said there were an average of nine full-time employed UK staff within their firm performing financial crime roles, spending an average of 46 hours of employee time per week monitoring transaction alerts and reviewing screening alerts. Analysis also showed that every additional 10 hours spent weekly on monitoring transactions and reviewing alerts, result in an additional 1.5 Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) raised internally.
Technology is key to increasing financial crime detection and prevention – but it is also a significant factor in driving up costs and staff workload. Respondents highlighted that over the last 12 months, £76,000 was spent on financial crime prevention technology, per firm. They also stated that they expect their firms will spend around £800,000 on crime prevention technology in the next five years. Technology usage is widespread – with 82% of firms using an automated system to screen clients and 84% employing transaction-monitoring software for Anti-Money laundering (AML) and sanctions detection.
Bev Robertson, Chief Operating Officer of Association of Professional Compliance Consultants, added: "This research provides a great snapshot into the deployment and engagement of firms. It not only highlights the costs and resources involved, but also looks at the challenges of balancing elements such as the use of technology versus manual screening in identifying and subsequently reporting on suspected financial crime – it highlights the variances across sectors and indeed around the global world of financial services. It also provides some thought-provoking ‘not to be ignored’ takeaways that firms should definitely be considering when evaluating their own financial crime prevention programs."
* Financial crimes - Fraud, Market Abuse, Anti-Bribery & Corruption (Bribery), Sanctions and Anti-Money laundering (AML).
