ABA Banking Journal - October 2009 - (Page 30)
BSA/AML TECHNOLOGY REPORT to get the best out of BSA technology Many banks need to better manage their BSA/AML software, while others have just started shopping for it. Both will benefit from advice 26ways SA/AML software used for screening customers and monitoring transactions comes in differing styles, sizes, and scalabilities, but experts agree that one common denominator is that all of them can be better utilized, whether the bank has been using the software for years or just finished installation. “The criticism I’ve heard is that there are too many false alerts [also called “false positives”], so that you and your staff are spending a lot of excess time investigating things that are not going to generate legitimate Suspicious Activity Reports,” says John Byrne, president, Condor Consulting LLC, and ABA BJ’s AML blogger. Longtime participants in this compliance subset say that regulators don’t give much official guidance regarding monitoring softBy Steve Cocheo, executive editor. This article was spurred by a session at ABA’s recent Regulatory Compliance Conference. To read our online coverage of that session, go to http://tinyurl.com/BSASoftware. 30 OCTOBER 2009/ABA BANKING JOURNAL ware. Technically, it’s not even required, although field examiners are said to frequently ask those banks with any significant transaction volume why they don’t use it, if they have not adopted it. “It’s all meant to be part of the risk-assessment process,” says Robert Rowe, ABA vice-president and senior counsel. “The regulators are concerned about achieving a reduction in false positives, but for slightly different reasons than the banks,” says S. Ramakrishnan, CEO at Oracle Mantas Products at Oracle Financial Services Software. “The banks require increased efficiencies to save costs. The regulators want fewer, but more targeted, alerts to help ensure that the banks are not missing anything.” “The weak spot is if you don’t tell the software to do the right thing,” warns Rick Small, a former federal anti-money-laundering official and vice-president at American Express in charge of enterprise-wide anti-money laundering and sanctions risk management. Here are 26 tips from bankers, consultants, and vendors: Subscribe at www.ababj.com
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