Anti Financial Crime Exchange Europe 2024: challenges ahead (and how to fix them)

Which current and future challenges are top-of-mind amongst leaders in the financial industry, and how should we tackle them? Here are our co-founders’ key takeaways from the latest Anti-Financial Crime Exchange Europe conference.

Anti financial crime exchange europe 2024

Exploring the future of compliance

On 17 and 18 of September, our two co-founders Thomas and Wouter attended the Anti-Financial Crime Exchange Europe conference in Frankfurt, Germany. This annual invitation-only event brings together compliance leaders from Europe’s leading banks and insurers to discuss the future of Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and compliance. With speakers from key companies in the region and beyond, the summit offered an excellent opportunity to catch up and discuss emerging trends.

Information sharing and open communication are key, as they provide valuable insights into topics that everyone has to grapple with, such as transaction management and anti-financial crime modelling. Part of our mission at the event was to learn more about the challenges our industry peers anticipate in the near future – and how to address them.

Top-three challenges ahead for financial players

During the event, we had the opportunity to chat with our industry peers on what they saw as the biggest challenges facing their organisation and industry. Here are the top-three that we identified:

1. Regulatory changes

With the rollout of the EU’s latest AML regulations, financial players have a lot on their plate in ensuring compliance with KYC procedures and new Ultimate Beneficial Ownership (UBO) requirements. The establishment of the new supervisory body, the Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA), which is also based out of Frankfurt, signals that the new rules will most definitely be strictly enforced. As a result, financial institutions must adapt their systems, processes and compliance framework fast to meet these new standards.

2. Geopolitical risks and sanctions

Ongoing conflicts – particularly the Russo-Ukrainian war and tensions in the Middle East – are having a direct impact on sanctions. Banks and insurers are feeling the pressure to always be prepared for new financial sanction packages. To avoid penalties and uphold their reputation with stakeholders and the public, a flexible and proactive approach (and corresponding technical setup) is essential.

3. AI and other technology advancements

The growing use of artificial intelligence in compliance and anti-money laundering efforts presents both opportunities and challenges. Banks are embracing deep learning algorithms and other AI-powered tools to improve their screening processes for transaction monitoring and customer due diligence. The excitement about the potential of these technologies comes with a serious drawback: bias in training data can easily result in flawed automated decision-making. At the same time, the 'black-box' nature of AI raises transparency concerns.

How our platform approach helps financial institutions

While the above concerns are certainly legitimate, we’re convinced that they’re not insurmountable. Our Harmoney compliance platform, for example, is specifically designed to combat the exact challenges related to regulatory changes and ever-changing sanctions that are so critical in building perpetual KYC, which in turn avoid one-off remediation campaigns.

When it comes to AI integration in compliance processes, we believe it works best when applied in a targeted manner. That’s why we chose to develop our Harmoney platform with a modular approach, using artificial intelligence tools to support specific compliance tasks like screening, validation and fraud detection. This ensures that our use of AI remains auditable throughout every individual step of a financial institution’s workflow, providing full peace of mind when it comes to compliance.

Harmoney offers a cutting-edge digital platform that streamlines intricate onboarding and compliance procedures, featuring automated screening functionalities. Interested in discovering more about our innovative solution? Reach out to us for further details!