In the previous episode of the AML Usual Subjects, four shady characters were brought in for questioning about unusual activity in their bank accounts. The investigator was lacking crucial context so he tried to understand their life story better to see whether it may have triggered the alarm bells.
So what were their answers? One was doing construction. Another wired money for his daughter’s tuition. A third recently sold his BMW. And the last received the final payment on his house.
AML Transaction Monitoring systems look for anomalies in customers’ accounts that match high-risk typologies. Unfortunately, most of the flagged anomalies are perfectly legit customer activities; best-in-class numbers are 80%, and in most banks the number is somewhere between 95% and 98%. That’s a lot of falsely flagged activities.
So what do you think – are they laundering money? Or are these stories the real deal? Find out in our next installment.
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