Resources & Insights

Financial crime such as money laundering and sanctions breaches continue to damage the UK economy and society. In September 2023, for the third consecutive year, SmartSearch surveyed decision-makers in 500 regulated UK businesses across finance, accountancy, legal and property sectors on a range of digital compliance issues. The campaign highlights the digital compliance issues, inefficiencies and shortfalls that are exposing regulated firms to debilitating fines and reputational damage. Its objective is to explore attitudes and approaches of regulated firms across the UK in relation to compliance and electronic identity (ID) verification.

SmartSearch, the UK’s leading provider of digital compliance and anti-money laundering (AML) solutions, today announces the appointment of Phil Cotter to the position of Chief Executive Officer. This follows the completion of a majority investment by Triple Private Equity, as the business looks to continue their ambitious growth plans. Triple announced its intention to invest in March 2024. The transaction marks the first investment made by Triple’s inaugural Fund I, which is focused on investing in B2B mission-critical vertical software and data businesses headquartered in the UK and the Nordic Region.

SmartSearch, a leading UK provider of digital compliance and anti-money laundering (AML) software, has today announced it has signed an agreement to receive a significant equity investment from Triple Private Equity. With its investment, Triple will now take a majority share in the business and will work alongside the existing management to deliver on the Company’s next stage of growth, with SmartSearch founders and existing shareholders also retaining a minority in the Company.

SmartSearch, the UK’s leading provider of anti-money-laundering (AML) and digital compliance software, has partnered with LSEG Risk Intelligence, a foremost global financial markets infrastructure and data provider. SmartSearch’s innovative platform now has access to LSEG’s worldwide data source of more than 40 countries to further enhance its AML and digital compliance solutions - in particular its ability to provide instant verification of international individuals.

For regulated businesses in the UK, remaining compliant is a huge responsibility that requires significant investment. While having the processes in place to fight money laundering is absolutely vital – to both preventing the crime and protecting the business - it is increased regulations, rather than the criminal threats themselves, that are driving up costs. That is because interpreting complex legislation – and keeping up with the constant changes to that legislation- is time-consuming and costly, and far too often, fear of non-compliance leads to an over-cautious approach. This, in turn, leads to the creation of larger compliance teams running higher volumes of checks. And while in theory, a larger team running more and more checks should lead to a more robust process, an over reliance on manual procedures which are open to human error, actually puts the business at higher risk of non-compliance. Digital compliance services not only offer a more reliable solution for regulated firms but can actually reduce costs - and in some cases, even create commercial opportunities for the business. In this whitepaper we look at how data and technology can help businesses across the UK create more efficient and cost-effective compliance processes.

More than a third (36 percent) of people in regulated firms who ‘can’t trust’ electronic ID verification and instead rely on manual checks are leaving their doors open to financial crime, anti-money laundering expert warns. This statistic - from SmartSearch’s 2023 annual survey of 500 compliance stakeholders - has doubled since their 2022 survey, when 18 percent of people said they couldn’t trust the technology.

SmartSearch, the UK’s leading provider of digital compliance and anti-money laundering (AML) technology, has successfully retained its full Great Place To Work accreditation.

More than two-thirds of regulated firms (70%) do not always complete essential identity checks when taking on new individual customers, new survey data can reveal.

Only a quarter (25 percent) of regulated firms always check new customers against sanctions or Politically Exposed Person (PEP) lists, according to new survey data from leading anti-money laundering (AML) and digital compliance firm, SmartSearch.