Apr.02, 2010

Software reseller Bateleur Software has been selected by software vendor Data-nomic to introduce and market its dn: director for sanctions and politically exposed persons (PEP) screening solution in South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa.

Bateleur MD Sam Selmer-Olsen says that the company has been actively implementing other screening solutions in South Africa, Tanzania, Mozambique and Angola for the past five years and has built up expertise in these regions’ antimoney laundering and compliance obligations. Datanomic software screens more than five-billion customer records a month globally.

Datanomic vice-president for risk and compliance screening Simon Pearson says that the partnership can ensure that South Africa’s financial services industry benefits from the same risk and compliance screening technology used in Europe and North America.

Benefits for customers using the solution include dramatically reduced mismatches, or false positives, the identification and subsequent opportunity to resolve and improve customer data, and fit-for-purpose screening. Better case management, compliance workflow and reporting tools also benefit the customer and reduce compliance review and cycle time.

Pearson says that the Data-nomic’s solution is smart, effective and efficient– smart, as it identifies hidden risks and solves underlying problems with customer data quality, and effective, owing to its accuracy, rigorous, systematic ongoing screening and its risk score calculation and management. The efficiency of the system enables automated solutions that demonstrate cost savings and a streamlined investigation process with case management.

Meanwhile, KPMG Forensic partner Kevin West explains that sanctions and PEP screen- ing can assist a business in identifying who it is doing business with. This is especially important when conducting cross-border transactions in foreign currencies or with certain countries.

Pearson says that frequent changes and updates to sanctions lists, PEP and risk data sources and inadequacies in systems and controls require the rescreening of data to meet full compliance standards. Ongoing screening is diffi- cult owing to mismatches, discrepancies in customer data, sanctions lists and PEP data, foreign names, customers and data, and it is a struggle to integrate legacy systems and deploy consistent policies, rules, systems and controls.

PEP and sanctions screening can be divided into two categories: the automated real-time screen- ing of new customers and the batch screening of current customers. Screening of current customers must also be ongoing, as changes to lists and the customer base may have taken place.

To reduce the number of mismatches, completeness, quality and accuracy of customer data are important, as are systems with rules around customer data, dealing with data inconsistencies, primary and secondary elimination criteria and data cleansing and preparation prior to screening.

Further, the correct third-party partners, such as World-Check and Dow Jones, must be chosen to provide PEP and sanctions lists and businesses must also consider the completeness of data.

“The more complete your data, the less you will have to investigate,” says West.

He reiterates that the most important criteria for screening are complete customer data, proper investigating soft- ware or tools dealing with data quickly and efficiently, and risk-based approaches to PEP screening.

Pearson concludes that Data-nomic believes that it is the only software vendor that can eliminate duplicates in customer data with its powerful screening algorithms and that there is no limit to the diversity of data that can be screened using its triangulation methods.