If you've watched the news or picked up a newspaper any time in the last few years, you know that illegal financial activity such as money laundering is on the rise. So, too, are the efforts of governments around the globe to squelch the growing threat. As a result, banks and other financial entities — and the executives who run them — are finding themselves under a regulatory microscope, accountable for any illegal financial activity that happens on their watch.

In the Spotlight Anti-Money Laundering Bank Systems & Technology reprint, January 30, 2005 Detecting Terrorist Financing American Banker reprint, September 24, 2004 [.pdf]

There's a lot at stake, too…for your organisation and for yourself: Stiff penalties and fines. Costly legal battles. Lengthy jail terms. Damaged reputation. And perhaps most costly of all, a decline in shareholder value.

The manual processes many organisations have used to detect money laundering activities just don't cut it any more. What you need is a sophisticated anti-money laundering solution that can take mountains of information from all areas of your business, manage and refine that information, and turn it into usable knowledge that will help you automatically identify and classify suspicious behavior. SAS Anti-Money Laundering is your answer.

No other vendor on the market offers the power and flexibility you'll find in this solution: Superior data management Consolidate, cleanse and transform data from all areas of your business into an open, flexible, industry-specific data model. Combine customer records from disparate sources and match them against lists of known or suspected criminals. State-of-the-art alert engine Easily monitor daily transactions for suspicious behavior. Use multiple techniques-such as profiling and predictive modeling-to minimise false-positive alerts while decreasing the risk of true criminal activity going undetected. Robust investigation interface Efficiently manage and investigate alerts via a secure, Web-based interface. Add comments, attach documents, send e-mails and file regulatory reports directly from the interface. Powerful discovery capabilities Design, evaluate and fine-tune new or existing scenarios based on historical performance. Easily mine large quantities of data using sophisticated analysis tools. Access robust analytic techniques such as profiling, segmentation, predictive modeling and link analysis via an intuitive graphical interface. Advanced administration tools Maintain ultimate control over scenarios, data elements and data security. Ensure the accuracy, effectiveness and efficiency of the system via open access to the system parameters.

SAS Anti-Money Laundering automatically identifies, classifies and surfaces suspicious activities so you can have faster access to critical information, detect suspicious activities with greater accuracy, better allocate your resources according to your needs, easily access an audit trail, and present investigators with accurate, relevant information. As a result, you'll be able to meet stringent government regulations, protect shareholder confidence and maintain a strong reputation.

Built on more than a quarter-century of experience in the banking and financial services industry, the SAS solution offers an integrated and open-ended architecture that lets you gather information across data sources, transform the appropriate data into useable knowledge, detect suspicious activity, and accurately alert investigators and authorities.

SAS has long been recognised as the provider of the most reliable and proven analytical expertise in the world. Our award-winning solutions are designed to handle the multiple pains associated with the various lines of business and multiple silo-ed data sources that are unique to the banking and financial services industry. In fact, 97 percent of FORTUNE Global 500 banks are SAS customers.

For more information on SAS^® Anti-Money Laundering, please contact us.

• Download the special report "Cutting off the money."
• Read the Bank Systems & Technology reprint "Anti-Money Laundering."
• Read related success stories.