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In the financial services industry reputation is paramount. Reputation is very often gained through hard work over a very long time but can be destroyed and lost in a moment, as a result of one incident which may not even be the fault of the institution. Now, more than ever, legislation and good business practice requires that financial institutions deploy Anti Corruption methods and systems to protect their customers and the institution's good reputation.
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The term corruption in the financial world refers to those, whether in politics, governments or the corporate world, who choose to seek illegitimate personal gain from their role via a form of illegal activity. The illegal activity may take the form of bribery, extortion, embezzlement, theft or other abuse of power to gain unfair and illegal advantage.
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Anti Corruption refers to the efforts of banks and other financial institutions to combat this illegal activity and prevent the laundering of Proceeds of Crime at the earliest possible opportunity.
In the fight against financial crime, regulators have take an increasingly hard line approach against institutions that are not fully equipped to combat corruption. It is not sufficient to say that you have found no evidence of corruption in your organisation, and the emphasis has now turned to proving to the regulator what Anti-Corruption measures you have taken proactively as an institution.
The UK financial services regulator, The Financial Services Authority, imposed a fine of £5.25m for “failing to take reasonable care to establish and maintain effective systems and controls for countering the risks of bribery and corruption associated with making payments to "Overseas Third Parties" who assisted Aon in winning business from overseas clients, particularly in high risk jurisdictions.
In the United States, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) has had an enormous impact on the way American firms do business, both in the US and overseas.
The FCPA was enacted by the US Congress in 1998 after the United States and thirty-three other countries signed the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions. The provisions of the FCPA make it unlawful for a U.S. person, and certain foreign issuers of securities, to make a corrupt payment to a foreign official for the purpose of obtaining or retaining business for or with, or directing business to, any person. The provisions also apply to foreign firms and persons who take any act in furtherance of such a corrupt payment while in the United States.
The management of financial institutions need to be absolutely sure that any prospective new client (especially from new, emerging markets) will bring you good, reliable income and that you can limit your risk exposure, to ensure you avoid unwittingly helping a client to hide the proceeds of corruption and launder their ill-gotten gains through the financial system. You need to be able to find out if your prospective client could be what the financial industry calls a Politically Exposed Person – a PEP – someone in a position of authority, with access to funds, who might be tempted to steal some of it.
In recent years corruption has been closely associated with Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs). It is not against the law or regulation for you to have a PEP as a customer, but regulation and law in most countries require you to carry out extra due diligence when you take the customer on, to carry out regular updates of your customer data, and to apply greater scrutiny to the transactions.
corruption.us gives you access to the world's leading database of individuals and entities who are a known heightened-risk of corruption, against which you can check your client's name, as well as details of family and associates, to see if they need the extra due diligence and monitoring which will protect your interests and satisfy the regulators that you are in control of your business. You need to be sure that you have clients on whom you can rely for a regular, solid and honest income and not to have criminals on your books. You need to be sure that you are meeting regulatory requirements. corruption.us can provide that comfort.
www.world-check.com provide one of the most effective Anti Corruption tools on the market today. These products ensure that financial managers are much better informed of the background of your client when you take them on and during the relationship. You need to be sure that you have clients on whom you can rely for a regular, solid and honest income and not to have criminals on your books. You need to be sure that you are meeting regulatory requirements and world-check.com can provide that comfort.
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