Fighting Crime with Open Source Solutions

New companies are entering financial services, bringing new technologies to areas from payments to settlements, reaching new markets and driving new risks.  Mainline financial services institutions must find ways to engage with the fintech community, but must avoid its “move fast and break things” mentality by developing purpose-built controls.   According to Vikas Agarwal, Partner, PwC US, Financial Crimes Unit Leader, ‘By focusing on sharing our experience and code rather than data, we are enabling financial institutions to replace traditional technology and approaches with machine learning models, new ways of viewing data and networks and intelligent automation. And our clients are realizing the benefits from day one.’

According to Aite-Novica, ‘It is evident from these challenges that financial institutions (FIs) must dynamically review and address many areas of their financial crime compliance (FCC) control framework, including current and future system solutions, the use of innovation, and the integration of data, people, and processes. These challenges need to be addressed in ever-shorter time scales and cannot be met through elongated systems implementations. PwC’s digital crime-fighting approach provides a marketplace for downloading assets, models, integrations, and rule sets made available through transparent open-source code. It brings together several key approaches that enable FIs to trial and quickly implement new and innovative techniques. Figure 2 shows the key elements of a digital crime-fighting framework. These elements in isolation provide substantial benefits, which are significantly enhanced when they are brought together into a consistent integrated framework. Open-source code and agile approaches provide the transparency, ease, and speed of adoption. Digital capabilities, data analytics, and a digital platform provide the core technologies and approaches that support all aspects of the AML life cycle, from KYC/customer due diligence (CDD), screening, and monitoring to reporting and control.’

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