SAS for Banking Summit

Data requirements are fast becoming the biggest challenge as banks don’t have the IT systems & processes in place that captures current information in a standardized manner in order to cater the needs of regulators.

Why - because regulators are asking for data in the way they want to look at and not the way banks are organized to provide it.

Various studies concluded that banks simply don’t have the data gathering mechanisms to meet the reporting requirements imposed by regulators. Lack of standardization in tracking product and counter party information is one such example.

Ensuring quality, consistency and reliability of risk, fraud and compliance data will ensure that existing systems can cater for the needs of regulatory reports.

Banks are having to face a fast-changing, turbulent and complex array of fraud threats from both within and outside their organisations. As frequently reported in the press, threats may come from a range of highly sophisticated organized criminal syndicates to opportunistic individuals, who are targeting institutions to steal and manipulate data for the purposes of financial or competitive gain.

Banks require an enterprise-wide scalable modular fraud detection platform that addresses these fraud threats.

Within the Compliance space, the issue of money laundering is one of the biggest threats facing banks today, and not only is the practice itself increasing, but so is the regulatory scrutiny around it.

Key to adopting an effective Anti-Money Laundering (AML) platform involves the deployment of the appropriate people, process & technology.

Banking in West Africa is going through a constant process of innovation to not only address the needs of the growing traditional banking market. Innovation is taking place to address the banking needs of the lower end of the market as well as the unbanked. This means that the risk profile of banks are changing and that the traditional manner of managing risk may not be effective for much longer. To be flexible and adjust to the risks which innovation in banking products bring, banks will be required to review their risk management frameworks and more important the technology they utilize to assist them.