Client: Sharia Compliant Bank

Scope: The Bank engaged Ashlynwood to undertake a review of the newly implemented SWIFT Transaction Monitoring Sanctions screening process to provide assurance over the design and operational effectiveness of the new system to meet regulatory and reporting requirements.

Engagement: Staying up-to-date in this challenging environment with various Regulatory bodies reporting requirements is imperative. Sanctions lists are regularly changing, and it was therefore key to ensure the payments system was picking up the most recent data. The review conducted included holding various discussions with relevant departments including the KYC team, FC team and Operations team and understanding the end-to-end process of the payments monitoring systems including analysis of sample transactions. Walk-through of the new process was undertaken as well as a review of the parameters set within the system to ensure there were stringent controls in place to make sure Red flags are picked up in a timely manner and matters resolved prior to the transactions being completed.

Outcome: Ashlynwood submitted a detailed report to the Board on the Bank’s new Transaction Monitoring  system with a number of recommendations requiring action.