SAS software – fighting fraud and money laundering

Fraud and money laundering, unfortunately, have evolved into very common and pressing issues. In reaction to this, many governments and regulatory bodies have had no choice but to enforce strict regulations on organisations to mitigate the existence of illicit and illegal activities. Manual operations and inferior software solutions are insufficient to keep up with these shifting trends, which is why many organisations have turned to SAS software and platforms as a method of alleviating fraud, preventing money laundering, while remaining compliant.

In the following sections, we’ll run through how SAS software helps organisations deal with and move beyond these rapidly increasing risks and regulations. However, before going any further, let’s dive into precisely what fraud and money laundering is in the context of modern businesses and organisations, and why they matter.

What constitutes fraud and money laundering?

Many of us are already at the very least loosely aware of what each of these terms means. They are after all an extremely recurrent problem organisations deal with today. Briefly put, fraud, in the context of organisations is defined as an act or course of deception, intentional concealment, omission, and/or prevention of truth that is leveraged to gain an unfair and unlawful advantage over another party. For business especially, fraud can commonly occur in the form of irregular and unsanctioned payments, nonmonetary transactions, and actions/events.

Money laundering, on the other hand, can be defined as the legitimisation of illegally obtained finances, with the intention of masking its true origin. Laundering is typically affiliated with much larger illegal activities like drug trading, terrorism, to name a few. Laundered money can be channelled in a variety of ways – the most common being via bank deposits, investments, and transfers from one individual/business to another.

It’s not uncommon for legitimate businesses and organisations to get caught up in allegations like these – especially with governments and institutions cracking down so hard. Here’s where SAS software is invaluable.

How does SAS software facilitate fraud mitigation?

With SAS Fraud Management, organisations now have a solution that allows them to identify instances of fraud by using industry-leading data analytics and machine learning to track payments and transactions. With this software, organisations can easily identify and respond to suspicious and fraudulent activities in a matter of minutes. Here are two ways SAS Fraud Management is particularly effective:

1) Making your risk-based decision-making process faster

With the ability to monitor multiple channels and lines of business, compliance managers and leaders can monitor organisation-wide events and transactions via a single platform – providing unprecedented visibility in a convenient manner.

2) Improve overall customer satisfaction

In the midst of all these regulations, one aspect that can get severely impacted is customer experience. With organisations focusing so much on remaining compliant, longer response times to fraud and false can often cause delays for customers. SAS Fraud Detection streamlines these operations, which means that customer inconvenience is kept low and virtually unimpacted.

How does SAS software strengthen anti-money laundering initiatives?

Organisations both large and small can fall victim to money laundering initiatives and/or be accused of such activities. When governments and institutions crack down, the ability to easily communicate/illustrate the legitimacy of transactions is invaluable. With SAS Anti-Money Laundering, organisations from around the world have access to a platform that automates these processes in a comprehensive, efficient, and accurate manner.

Here are two ways SAS Anti-Money Laundering helps businesses enforce AML efforts:

1) Facilitation of much faster, accurate alerts

All AML initiatives required speed and accuracy. Getting to the bottom of a suspicious activity can be the difference between an organisation clamping down on money-laundering or appearing to be soft of on it. Both can be equally damaging. With SAS’ software in place, administrators can instantly point to a suspicious activity, leverage segmentation strategies to identify patterns based on the organisation’s history and peers. This results in very high Suspicious Activity Report (SAR).

2) Complete visibility of flow of funds

SAS’ AML software comprises powerful fund tracking capabilities, which makes it much easier for organisations to visualise the flow of funds between parties. Leveraging a Sankey diagram, users get an in-depth and extremely illustrative visual of how funds are moving. This reporting is not only valuable for internal purposes but for providing evidence of legitimate transactions or, in the worst case scenario, a lack thereof.

Ultimately, SAS software is invaluable in helping organisations navigate these often challenging waters. With the right SAS software in place, many organisations stand to benefit significantly, while avoiding any potential problems in the future.

If you would like to know more about our SAS installation, administration, and hosting services, feel free to contact us and we’d be happy to answer any questions you may have. Additionally, as an official SAS Resell Partner, we can help set you up with the right SAS software for your establishment. In the meantime, be sure to stay tuned to this feed for the latest SAS and analytics-related news!