The Co-operative Bank has signed a deal to use software
from IBM and Searchspace to help it to detect suspicious financial
transactions and comply with money laundering
regulations.
The Co-op is using a package from IBM's newly-formed European
Financial Crime Unit as an addition to its existing anti-money
laundering systems.
The system uses Searchspace's Sentinel software, running on
Websphere middleware and eServer pSeries from IBM.
It checks for unusual customer behaviour, comparing transactions to
data stored in front- and back-office IT systems at the bank.
The software alerts investigators at the Co-op bank to suspicious
transactions who then investigate and decide whether to inform the
National Criminal Intelligence Service.
Steve Howlett, head of financial crime prevention at the
Co-operative Bank, said the software would help the bank to
continue to comply with money laundering regulations and
legislation.
"The accuracy of the alert [over a potentially suspicious
transaction] is as important as the number of alerts [the software]
generates. The [software] gives us more qualitative information,"
he said.
Financial services companies are spending more on fraud detection
software in response to stringent anti-money laundering regulations
in Europe and the US.
In December 2003 high-street bank Abbey was fined about £2m by City
watchdog the Financial Services Authority for failing to meet
regulations to tackle money laundering.