- Customer Success Story -
Anti-Money Laundering
Kenya
Fortune Sacco Enhances AML Compliance with Arbutus Analytics
Our Client: Fortune Sacco Limited, Banking and Financial Services
- Wilson Waweru, Head of Internal Audit, Governance, Compliance and Accountability.
Summary: Compliance with the Central Bank of Kenya Prudential Guidelines on Financial Reporting.
- Fortune Sacco Limited is now compliant with Clause 5.5 of the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) Prudential Guidelines on Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism (CBK/PG/08).
Challenges
Fortune Sacco (Savings and Credit Co-operative) needed to monitor, detect, and report risks associated with money laundering and terrorism financing. However, existing systems lacked the necessary capabilities.
Customizing the Core Banking Software to meet these requirements would involve significant capital investment.
Existing System Limitations
To address this requirement, Fortune Sacco had two options:
- Custom Core Banking Software Additions: Commit significant capital investments to customize the existing Core Banking Software. However, this approach would result in a fixed, limited solution that couldn’t adapt to evolving consumer behavior.
- Responsive Solution: Seek an alternative solution that would be more adaptable and responsive.
Solution:
Fortune Sacco Limited, a deposit-taking financial institution in Central and Eastern Kenya, sought to strengthen its anti-money laundering (AML) controls.
Here’s how they achieved it:
- Leveraging Arbutus Hub: Fortune Sacco leveraged its internal audit department’s existing use of Arbutus Hub for continuous monitoring and exception reporting.
- Workflow Model: By utilizing workflow features, they built a model to evaluate all transactions within the Core Banking System.
- Model Creation: The model assigned a weighted score to each transaction or customer behavior based on CBK markers and indicators related to potential money laundering activity.
- Threshold Evaluation: Transactions or customers exceeding a specified threshold within a given period were flagged for further scrutiny.
Result:
With Arbutus, Fortune Sacco achieved the following outcomes:
- Enhanced Evaluation: They can now assess the validity of each customer transaction, making informed decisions.
- Regular Reports: The finance and audit teams receive timely reports on transactions and customers of interest.
- Cost and Time Savings: Implementing the Arbutus Anti-Money Laundering (AML) solution took only four weeks, significantly faster than custom software development for the core banking system.
Impact:
The impact of implementing the Arbutus Anti-Money Laundering solution at Fortune Sacco Limited was significant:
- Enhanced Compliance: Fortune Sacco achieved full compliance with Clause 5.5 of the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) Prudential Guidelines on Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism (CBK/PG/08).
- Streamlined Evaluation: Fortune Sacco could now evaluate each customer transaction, ensuring validity and adherence to regulations.
- Timely Reporting: Regular reports provided by the solution allowed the finance and audit teams to focus on transactions and customers of interest.
- Cost and Time Savings: Implementing the Arbutus solution took only four weeks, a significantly shorter timeframe compared to custom software development for the core banking system.
Overall, Arbutus’s workflow features and analytics capabilities empowered Fortune Sacco to efficiently combat money laundering risks while maintaining operational agility.
Most importantly, Fortune Sacco is now compliant with the reporting guidelines as set out in law.
Arbutus Workflow - Key Features
Arbutus Analyzer offers powerful analytics with simplified workflows. Here are some key features:
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Code-Free Workflows: Design analytics intuitively using icon-based, drag-and-drop workflows. Automate steps quickly and schedule them in Arbutus HUB without specialized skillsets
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Containers: Group commands into containers for better space management, performance, and process isolation.
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Zooming: Easily navigate complex workflows by zooming in or out to focus on specific details
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Copy/Paste: Speed up your work by copying or pasting commands within your workflow or across different workflows1.
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Enhanced Results: Visualize results quickly, whether visual or tabular, when running commands like Compare, Classify, Stratify, and Aging
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Scheduled Automation: Use Arbutus HUB to automate repetitive tasks, run analytics just in time, schedule off-peak executions, or monitor continuously without manual intervention