BankservAfrica has selected Datanomic's highly acclaimed customer screening solution, dn:Sentry, to provide a sanctions screening bureau service for the African banking sector.
Represented solely in South Africa by Bateleur Software since 2010, dn:Sentry for Compliance Screening currently globally screens in excess of five billion customer records each month.
It is recognised as the risk and compliance screening software of choice by two of the top 10 global retail banks locally, one of the world's largest hedge funds, one of Europe's leading merchant banks, one of the world's largest investment banks, more than half of the UK's top 10 wealth/asset managers, one of the oldest stock broking firms on the London Stock Exchange, and some of the UK's largest insurance companies.
BankservAfrica, the industry leader in electronic payment and information switching services and Africa's leading automated payment clearing house, will be offering the Datanomic screening service to its clients via a Web portal. The service will allow these companies to instantly screen customers and potential customers against a database of politically exposed persons (PEPs) to comply with sanctions regulations which prevent companies from doing business with PEPs.
“Across the globe, nobody wants to deal with terrorists,” says Cuthbert Tembedza, CEO Africa at BankservAfrica. “The Datanomic solution, which links to the Dow Jones List, puts BankservAfrica in a position of trust among our clients, and in turn, strengthens their integrity as trusted companies with which to do business.
“Banks can have their own systems, but we have taken on the responsibility so that companies can afford the best customer screening service through BankservAfrica at the centre of the banking system, rather than invest in the software themselves. We will be taking the product into the rest of Africa as well.”
“The quality of the dn:Sentry product for customer screening and the Dow Jones connection made it an obvious choice for us,” says Anton Rennison, Africa projects co-ordinator and business development at BankservAfrica. “Datanomic is a proven product with a known and trusted name.”
Tembedza concurs: “Dow Jones has an excellent reputation in the financial space. It also has a huge research unit which means it's more likely to come across much more information so it makes much more sense to collaborate rather than reinvent the wheel by creating our own screening system.
“This move goes beyond commercial sense, it is taking responsibility for our clients,” he concludes.
Note 1:
The 3rd EU Money Laundering Directive, which came into effect in December 2007, placed rigorous information management requirements on financial services organisations to systematically screen their client base to ensure they were not unknowingly doing business with criminals, terrorists or fraudsters. Should a firm, knowingly or unknowingly, breach this directive - or any other legislative requirements such as Basel II, MiFID, the Prevention of Terrorism Act and the UK Proceeds of Crime Act - they risk ruining their reputations and will incur hefty financial penalties and operational trade restrictions.
Note 2:
The Financial Intelligence Centre Amendment Act widened the scope of the Financial Intelligence Centre's powers and changed important sections of FICA, the Financial Intelligence Centre Act 38 of 2001 which introduced mechanisms aimed at preventing money laundering, and created an anti-money laundering regulatory regime encouraging voluntary compliance and self-regulation. Failing FICA obligations is an offence carrying the penalties of imprisonment of a maximum of 15 years or a fine of a maximum of R10 million.
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