riskCanvas Roots Out Money Laundering

What makes riskCanvas different is the data science and advanced analytics that goes into it. Many banks have large anti-money laundering programs to conduct investigations—sometimes thousands of analysts, but the problem is that their systems are generating greater than 99 percent false positives alerts and each one of those false positives has to be checked out by an analyst.

“That’s a huge efficiency problem,” says Senior Associate Quinten Hout, riskCanvas product manager, “both in human hours and costs, while the real criminals could get away undetected.”

By applying a propriety technology to search open-source data, riskCanvas is able to enrich the information that banks are already required to collect about their customers. It then goes through detailed analysis and generates something we call riskDNA^TM, and eventually everything known about a customer is distilled into a Risk Score.

Through riskCanvas’ case management tool, which leverages Big Data technologies to aggregate large and disparate customer and transaction data, analysts are able to conduct their investigations more rapidly and conclusively than ever before.

“RiskCanvas has cut false positives down by 50 percent,” says Quinten, “and reduced wasted analyst time by 75 to 80 percent. All in all, this is delivering multi-million dollar cost reduction for our customers.”

And we have the time studies to back up that claim, adds Joe.

"I’m proud of Booz Allen and the people that have come together to create this offering,” says Joe. “We’re bold about creating better processes and that’s exactly what the financial industry needed us to do. In 2 years, we’ve made quite an impact in compliance and are helping financial institutions realize that there’s a better way.”

And let’s not forget that in addition to the benefits financial institutions see from being able to meet their regulatory obligations better and more cost effectively, “We’re saving lives,” Quinten says. “I believe that. By disrupting the ability of really bad people to move money and finance their operations, we’re creating a safer society.”

That’s the kind of risk we’re willing to take.