New Alliance Helps CUs with BSA Compliance, Fraud Detection

February 27, 2007

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Katye Long
CUNA Communications; (608) 231-4038
klong@cuna.coop

MADISON, Wis. – Credit unions can more accurately and efficiently comply with the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and protect themselves against a multitude of fraud schemes with a software program available through a new alliance between CUNA Strategic Services and Verafin.

“Credit unions have demonstrated a trend of increased diligence with regard to BSA compliance, evidenced by the fact that they filed more than double the number of suspicious activity reports with regulators in 2005 than in 2004,” said Jamie King, Verafin’s president.

“Despite such efforts, however, credit unions are also discovering that it is virtually impossible to comply with BSA regulations without the aid of technology. The NCUA conducted a comparable number of BSA exams in both 2004 and 2005, but the number of BSA violations skyrocketed from 864 out of 4,346 exams in 2004 to a staggering 4,754 violations out of 4,715 exams in 2005,” said King.

Verafin’s customer intelligence suite combines advanced artificial intelligence technologies with sophisticated pattern recognition techniques to help ensure compliance with the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council’s (FFIEC) BSA/Anti-Money Laundering Examination Manual as well as addresses fraud detection. Some of its highlights includes:

• Currency transaction reporting – identifies and automates the reporting of Currency Transaction Reports (CTRs), pre-populates and electronically submits required reports to the Financial Crime Enforcement Network (FinCEN).
• Suspicious activity detection and reporting – scans all transactions, including deposits, wires, and automated clearing house, red flags suspicious activity, checks incoming and outgoing wires, and facilitates enhanced due diligence for high risk accounts and activity. Pre-populates and electronically submits required suspicious activity reports to FinCEN.
• Watch list checking – checks account holders against the Office of Foreign Asset Controls (OFAC) Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list, performs 314(a) law enforcement searches, checks incoming and outgoing wires, flags positive matches, and alerts compliance officers. Also accommodates other fraud and internal watch lists and maintains exemption lists.
• Customer risk scoring – addresses both static and dynamic risks, produces a risk score for each member according to the FFIEC BSA Exam Manual, analyzes all transactions for every member, performs dynamic risk scoring for all members, and ranks members to allow assessment of potential risk.
• Debit fraud - identifies unusual patterns in debit card usage, high velocity ATM/POS transactions, and unusual locations fusing evidence to identify various fraud scenarios. Also provides investigative tools to manage cases.
• Check fraud – identifies unusually large checks, patterns associated with check kiting, and flags out-of-sequence checks, fusing evidence to uncover various fraud scenarios.
• Account fraud – identifies unusual online activity and activity on new and dormant accounts.

Users can also open, track, share, and assign priority levels to cases, as well as add supporting evidence documents. This software suite integrates with any core processing system and offers a high level of security.

“The advent of terrorist financing combined with a growing complexity of money laundering schemes has spurred NCUA examiners to place an intensified regulatory focus on anti-money laundering compliance,” said Wes Millar, senior vice president of CUNA Strategic Services.

The mandatory requirements to monitor, detect, and report suspicious activity have created an overwhelming manual workload for credit unions that can be more adequately addressed through the use of technology offered through our new alliance with Verafin,” said Millar.

For more information, visit strategicservices.cuna.org, or contact Tom Lybeck, product manager for CUNA Strategic Services, at (800) 356-9655, ext. 4109, or by e-mail at tlybeck@cuna.coop.

About CUNA Strategic Services

CUNA Strategic Services, owned jointly by the Credit Union National Association (CUNA) and the state leagues, provides credit unions with access to high quality products, services, and technologies delivered with a competitive advantage made possible through volume pricing and strategic program development. CUNA serves more than 90 percent of America’s 8,800 credit unions, which are owned by more than 88 million consumer members. Credit unions are not for profit cooperatives providing affordable financial services to people from all walks of life. For more information, visit strategicservices.cuna.org.

About Verafin

Verafin is one of North America’s leading BSA/AML compliance and fraud detection software vendors. Their product is an innovative solution that combines advanced artificial intelligence technologies with sophisticated pattern recognition techniques. It facilitates compliance with the FFEIC BSA/Anti-Money Laundering Examination Manual and protects financial institutions against fraud. Its flexible platform integrates with any core processing system and its superior analytics excel at detecting suspicious activity. Verafin was founded by a team of computer engineers with a background in artificial intelligence, pattern recognition, and robotics.

Copyright © 2008 - Credit Union National Association, Inc.