Record growth at anti-money laundering firm SmartSearch

Specialist anti-money laundering firm SmartSearch, which expanded into the US last year, has reported record annual growth. The rapid expansion has been driven by a surge in demand for its industry-leading online identity verification and due diligence platform.

The UK-based company increased business by 23% during 2021, with turnover year-on-year rising from $15.9 million (£11.8 million) to $19.5 million (£14.5 million). During that period, subscribers grew from 5,012 to 5,874., and the number of employees nearly doubled, increasing from 109 to 181.

Managing director Martin Cheek said: “These record results for 2021 come in the context of a 77% increase in turnover at SmartSearch over the past three years.

“This growth reflects a surge in demand for our state-of-the-art technology, especially from regulated companies, as they seek an effective solution to the dramatic rise in attempted fraud and money laundering since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We are now focusing on building upon this growth, and SmartSearch’s strategy for moving the business forward will be driven by our new CEO Guy Harrison, who has joined us from Dow Jones.”

SmartSearch launched its award-winning electronic anti-money laundering (AML) platform in 2011, and since then has continually developed and refined its technology and to enable clients to accurately identify and verify their customers in just two seconds.

The SmartSearch system makes it virtually impossible for a fraudster to use a fake identity, as it conducts identity checks using a combination of credit reference data and trusted public sources.

Accolades that the company, which is headquartered near Leeds, West Yorkshire, has received for its innovative work include a Queen’s Award for Enterprise, and it was recently chosen to provide customer verification by Alto, which is part of Zoopla and provides cloud-based software for estate agents.