Thursday, 26 December 2024
Fenergo selected by four of the largest Australian banks
Fenergo, a provider of Client Lifecycle Management software solutions for Corporate & Institutional, Business & Commercial and Private banks, has announced that it has been selected to partner with four of the top five banks in Australia.
Fenergo’s enterprise-wide Client Lifecycle Management software solutions are in the process of being implemented in each of the banks. Unsurprisingly, regulatory compliance was a big driver behind the deals, with the majority of banks concerned over the never-ceasing pace of regulatory change and more intensive scrutiny by regulatory authorities on AML and KYC policies and controls.
According to Brett Hodge, Vice President of Fenergo APAC, “Australian banks are really caught in a catch-22 situation at the moment. The sheer number of new regulatory obligations bearing down on them is having a significant impact on their ability to meet regulatory deadlines, deliver operational efficiencies and provide great customer experience. On the other hand, the regulators are starting to bare their teeth and the industry is bracing themselves for more financial penalties”.
One of the core issues around AML / KYC compliance and the key to understanding and monitoring transactions for AML breaches involves being able to understand the unique inventory of counterparties that banks do business with – including their structures, ownership (particularly beneficial ownership) and affiliations. Banks are required to maintain risk profiles for each of these in line with regulatory requirements but are not always set up operationally or technologically to do so. By connecting all of these data pieces together, the bank can attach the relevant transactions to the correct group of counterparties, making monitoring of the network far more transparent and efficient.
The APAC region, as a whole, has rapidly ramped up its efforts against Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) control failures amid intense international scrutiny. More recently, the APRA (Australian Prudential Regulation Authority) has promised to apply greater supervisory intensity to financial institutions either unwilling or unable to address behaviors that are inconsistent with prudent risk management practices.
“The good news is that many banks are now taking additional steps in implementing RegTech solutions that will help them future-proof against evolving and new regulatory obligations and drive better digital client experiences,” explains Hodge.
“There is a big move towards consolidating the client lifecycle process across all lines of business, banking operations and subsidiaries to ensure centralized management of AML, KYC and regulatory compliance processes. In this way, banks can manage complex, multi-jurisdictional relationships on a single homogenous infrastructure, helping them to achieve regulatory compliance and governance with national and international regulations. It also helps them to provide a consistent application of compliance to all clients, realize efficiencies in internal costs and data remediation and provide a better client experience.”
Fenergo has made significant investment in its APAC operations over the last number of years. With its APAC headquarters based in Sydney, the company has opened offices in Singapore and Japan, and is growing its local employee base in the region.
Hodge attributes Fenergo’s success in Australia and the wider Asia Pacific region to the company’s community approach to solving regulations both locally and globally. “Our monthly Regulatory Forums and quarterly Client Advisory Boards enable us to come together as a community who are all facing the same challenges to create standards that ensure regulatory compliance. These forums help us and our clients to tap into a larger number of regulatory experts – both in our team and in our clients’ teams across the world, helping to create strategic and practical solutions around compliance, KYC remediation activities and documentation services, as well as to enhance client experiences through innovative digital channels.”
Re-disseminated by The Asian Banker
