Comprehensive Bank Secrecy Act and Anti-Money Laundering Solution lets bank streamline its monitoring efforts. 

 

BB&T Corporation adopts new BSA AML Solution

With its Bank Secrecy Act Anti-Money Laundering (BSA-AML) group dedicated to focusing on compliance with BSA, the USA Patriot Act, and other regulations, BB&T needed to step up it's suspicious activity reporting in compliance with stricter government standards in the aftermath of the Patriot Act passage and a heightened concern about locating sources of terrorist funding.

Ranked as the 12th largest financial holding company in the U.S., BB&T Corporation has total assets of $121.7 billion, more than 30,000 employees, and 1,450 branches in 11 states and Washington, D.C.   
 
Marc Geeting, BSA Officer, held the responsibility of ensuring that BB&T was in compliance.  The stakes were higher than ever before.

The BSA AML function within BB&T covered a wide range of responsibilities including:
•    completion of an annual BSA AML risk assessment;
•    design and tracking of BSA AML training throughout BB&T;
•    monitoring of daily transactions to pinpoint suspicious activity;
•    filing of currency transaction reports (CTRs);
•    managing customer due diligence (CDD) and risk scoring each BB&T customer; and
•    centralizing suspicious activity reporting (SAR).

Negotiating the maze of regulatory compliance was complex and often involved time-intensive manual processes, which at the time, was largely managed via excel spreadsheets.  Because the BSA AML Group was a non-revenue producing entity, managing costs was critical.  The challenge involved striking a balance between achieving the right level of compliance and maintaining business productivity and account opening targets.  BB&T realized they needed to look at ways to simplify the compliance process.

The right automation
BB&T engaged LexisNexis® Risk & Information Analytics Group and Actimize who together provided a single, integrated solution specifically for the CDD component of the compliance process. 

BB&T chose the LexisNexis/Actimize CDD Solution because of the vendor's comprehensive approach and integrated workflow. The end-to-end offering enables financial institutions to increase their insight into real-time customer behavior to improve risk and compliance performance. 

Now, the solution automatically determines if a customer is high risk or low risk and intuitively takes the necessary steps if a person falls into the high risk category.   Usually, a high risk case is monitored through periodic reviews that are now done via automated alerts whether monthly, quarterly, or annually.

Results
The solution helps to prevent BB&T from incurring repeat customer audits or examinations.  BB&T ensures that compliance mandates are met without compromising the speed at which customers can open new accounts through any channel, whether via the phone, web, or branch.  Beyond the government’s ultimate goal of arresting or convicting a person of money laundering, Geeting regards measurement in terms of his ability to fulfill audit and examination commitments, which is an ongoing process.  However, a proactive versus reactive approach to auditing and regulatory examination can often prevent problems before they start. 

There is a new trend underway whereby government is relying on the SARs from multiple financial institutions to collectively create the case.  The CDD Solution from LexisNexis and Actimize has helped BB&T build, strengthen and deepen its BSA programs.  BB&T finds itself in a more measured implementation period that gives the bank the opportunity to step back, find greater efficiencies, hone compliance processes even further, and ultimately continue to drive cost reduction.

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