There are many factors that contribute to the rising cost of financial crime (FC) compliance including the limitations placed on the privacy of data, the growing complexity of compliance itself and the large chunk of labour costs linked to this. This could explain why sustainability is emerging as a key objective for organisations in their quest to achieve FC compliance while trying to manage the spiralling costs linked to this.

With more than 20 years of solid FC compliance experience, Lysis Group knows that the best efforts from organisations to implement and maintain FC compliance, without expert interventions, often fall short due to specific reasons: Organisations tend to focus more on testing, monitoring, and improving their FC controls and don’t always realise that their activities might be completely outdated and are no longer fit-for-purpose, which might also impact the accuracy and completeness of their data. Due to the complexity of FC compliance, organisations are often overwhelmed which could lead to reactive behaviour and the adoption of quick fixes. This becomes obstacles for continuous engagement to improve processes, introduce innovation, automation, and cultural changes to enhance the effectiveness of FC frameworks in a sustainable manner.

Global and multinational organisations must weather many challenges to maintain the consistency of FC controls across different entities and jurisdictions. Therefore, actions taken by organisations such as ‘unbundling’, can be perceived as risky shortcuts and potential attempts to circumvent regulations. Increase effectiveness by focusing on efficiency

Our extensive track record of helping organisations to successfully achieve and maintain FC compliance has a distinct focus on reducing the short-and long-term costs linked to compliance and at the same time, promote organisational growth. This can only be achieved when clear objectives that have been identified are reviewed regularly through active engagement and if there is an emphasis on the planned outcomes. To optimise organisations’ FC controls, require an increase in effectiveness of processes along with a dedicated focus on high efficiency which will facilitate sustainable processes to demonstrate effective FC controls under scrutiny. Organisations must also view the improvement of their FC controls as a good commercial investment by focusing on the business advantages these could have for the organisation.

To introduce innovation and to actively engage the 1st line of defence (LoD), as part of the organisation’s cultural enhancement could:
Reduce and assist with the active management of the cost of FC compliance;
Increase customer experiences; Provide investment advantages;
Enhance reputation;
Create a safer business environment for customers, employees and investors;
Have a positive social impact;
Establish future growth.

Key directional indications
We are all aware that the financial crime landscape is changing fast, which is why it is vitally important to partner with a market-leading FC compliance expert. The Lysis Group are perfectly positioned to effectively manage the risks, costs and the emerging compliance challenges linked to your organisation. The alternative could lead to ongoing scrutiny, potential fines and in extreme cases to the risk of folding the business. Adequate and effective financial crime governance is in place to protect the business, its customers, senior management, employees, and investors. However, implementation of effective and robust FC governance can increase costs and become unsustainable unless innovation intervenes to improve the adequacy and effectiveness of an organisation’s FC framework efficiently.

For an organisation to be sustainable, they must be proactive and focus on prevention instead of facing costly fines and reputational damage. The Lysis Group is domain experts in FC, AML, KYC, Client on-boarding and CLM and have decades of experience in unlocking value for organisations by designing policies and writing supporting procedures to ensure compliance and operational efficiency.