Mar 2025
The Compliance Trap: Why Rapid Growth Can Lead to Regulatory Failures
Growth at speed brings risks. When compliance fails to keep pace, companies become vulnerable to financial crime, regulatory penalties and reputational damage.
In May this year, a team of financial crime experts from Lysis joined the 5th FCA Tech Sprint.
This was the most ambitious project yet by the FCA RegTech team with 260 participants from 105 firms collaborating over 3 days to produce innovative solutions in the areas of anti-money laundering (AML) and financial crime. The FCA have made tackling financial crime one of their key priorities for 2018. Estimates of the total money laundered across the globe range from just under $1 trillion to well over $2 trillion every year, and whilst regulators have tried to close the net, only about 1% of these illicit funds are detected and captured. Additionally, fines handed out to banks for AML compliance failures totalled over $2 billion last year alone. Whilst the criminals are getting ever more sophisticated in their dealings, there have been some exciting developments in the technologies to help organisations prevent and detect financial crimes.
The FCA was keen to explore how Artificial Intelligence (AI), Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) and other innovative technologies could help firms be smarter in their approach to the detection and prevention of financial crime. The Lysis team worked across three projects specifically, including a digital verification network backed by UK government official IDs, and machine learning analysis of transactions to pick up suspicious patterns and behaviours. There was some fierce competition between the various self-organised teams and prizes were given for the fastest to implement, the ‘eureka’ award for the most original and the ‘jump’ award which represented the biggest leap forward in terms of technology innovation.
The overall winner went to the imaginatively titled ‘Catch the Chameleon’ a Blockchain-enabled solution enabling the sharing of Q&As to match profiles of companies to prove they are same company under different guise, hence preventing the ‘chameleons’ re-inventing themselves after being rejected initially from the financial ecosystem. Many of the technology solutions showcased in the Tech Sprint have already started their journey into the mainstream but others have some way to go to prove their viability. At Lysis, have been working with a number of solutions providers in our Innovations Lab, to assess their potential and collaborate with clients to bring them the right solutions for their specific requirements. You can find out more about the tech sprint and subsequent events here https://www.fca.org.uk/events/techsprints/aml-financial-crime-international-techsprint Also, if you would like to find out more about technology innovation in CLM then check out our web page: https://www.lysisgroup.com/innovations-lab Or you can talk to one of our team by contacting us at info@lysisfintech.com
Growth at speed brings risks. When compliance fails to keep pace, companies become vulnerable to financial crime, regulatory penalties and reputational damage.
Financial crime compliance is undergoing a major transformation as regulatory demands, emerging technologies and evolving criminal tactics reshape the landscape.
The FCA published its formal response to the UK Government’s letter, which outlined expectations for fostering growth and innovation in the financial services sector.
