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The findings were uncovered in Kroll’s annual Global Enforcement Review (2021). The study found that, globally, 45 fines for AML failures were issued in 2020. This matched the number of fines issued in 2019.

In addition to this, the pattern of the fines issued in the first half of 2021 seems to be following the trend set in 2019 and 2020. The latest data shows that 17 fines were issued between January and July 2021, which was just under half of 2020’s year-end total.

Studies have shown that fines for AML failings by regulated institutions were five times higher in 2020 than in 2019. In total, AML penalties for 2020 reached $2.2 billion.

Finserv

Studies have shown that fines for AML failings by regulated institutions were five times higher in 2020 than they were in 2019. In total, AML penalties for 2020 reached $2.2 billion.

Fines for AML failings by regulated institutions were five times higher in 2020 than in 2019

AML fines reached $2.2 billion in 2020

However, despite consistency in the volume of fines issued, the total value of AML fines has skyrocketed to $2.2 billion. This was five times the amount issued in 2019.

Claire Simm, managing director, of financial services compliance and regulation at Kroll, commented: “The figures show that investigations were not paused for Covid-19. While the number of fines remained constant, the value of fines surged as regulators imposed tougher penalties, continuing to send the message that despite any obstacles, enforcement remains a top priority for non-compliant behavior.

“These fines show that across the world, regulators continue to put high importance on financial crime enforcement. We can expect to see mega-fines and criminal enforcement continue through 2021 and beyond.”

The findings from the Kroll study came as the Financial Conduct Authority pursued criminal charges for money laundering failings against a regulated entity for the first time in the history of the regulatory body. Similarly, in America, the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act made comprehensive reforms to AML laws in the country.

The current pattern of AML fines and failures highlights the ongoing challenges that firms in every part of the world face when engaging money launderers. Now, enforcement activities and increased legislation in both the US and Europe demonstrate not only a shift in focus on regulation but also that regulators are punishing AML failings more strictly than they ever have before. As a result, businesses must take time to review their AML processes and ensure that they’re meeting the requirements of AML/CFT legislation.

With the help of our AML and KYC compliance solution, you can ensure that your customers are who they say they are. Our AI-powered tool makes identity verification fast and simple, without compromising compliance and identity fraud prevention. With our tool, you can show regulators that you take financial crime and compliance seriously.

To learn more about how we can help make sure that your business stays compliant, schedule a consultation with our experts today. 

Carl-Ruuben Soolep

Happy Cybersecurity Awareness Month! Paul Lee, Veriff's Chief Information Security Officer, gives his view on the current cybersecurity threat landscape and how organizations can stay one step ahead in an evolving world where generative AI and sophisticated attacks are becoming the new normal.

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Paul Lee, Veriff's Chief Information Security Officer, shares insights on the evolving cybersecurity landscape, generative AI, and advanced threats.

Paul Lee | Current Cybersecurity Threat Landscape | Veriff.com

Before jumping to cybersecurity topics, please tell us how you learned about Veriff and what drew you to the company.

Absolutely! Before joining Veriff, I was a Chief Information Security Officer at Uphold, a Veriff customer. We were testing Veriff's fraud prevention capabilities and were impressed with it. So, I was already familiar with the company and some people due to that. While working in the security space, I had always been interested in the identity side of it because I believe that identity is the root of all, good or ill. So, when the opportunity arose to join, I decided to scratch that itch.

Please share a little about your background and previous experience. How did you end up in the IT and security field? Has it always been something you have been passionate about?

I started at a wholesale supplier to what you'd now call dollar stores, which itself had a complex web of suppliers for all the products that end up in those stores. My role primarily involved assessing products, seeing how we could put them in our little catalog, and then distributing them to stores across the UK. While there, I noticed certain inefficiencies. An example I saw was entirely manual processes to do stock-taking. It was done by hand, and there was a horrendous trail of paper reconciliations with all the associated and unavoidable errors. There was scant automation and certainly not much computerization. So, together with a colleague, we gradually computerized certain processes in that firm. Looking back, it seems strange that they were so limited in their use of computers. They did have them, but primarily for basic tasks like mail merges. At that point, I really enjoyed this process of digitization. I went on to pursue higher education in that field, essentially finding my niche.

You have extensive experience in the field from notable and well-known businesses, including crypto, greentech, and video gaming. What are some of the most valuable takeaways from working at those companies?

People are the most valuable assets because of what they bring with them. They are the collection of all the experiences and challenges they've overcome in their lives until the moment they stand before you, and they are easily our greatest asset. They will come up with new ideas and angles, and especially in a group setting, often help create solutions that will shape the company's course. 

For me, people are the champions of the vision I'm trying to promote. Building consensus and alignment is crucial, even though it may sometimes require change and adaptation, which can be challenging. Ultimately, it's about winning hearts and minds for a shared vision.

What are some of your priorities and goals for Veriff?

There are lots of interesting projects going on here. My goal is to ensure that the team is running smoothly and that we can measure the effectiveness of our systems inside and outside the company.

What's super interesting is that in our infosec team and work, we have to consider the confluence of cyber and physical security since we have our in-house verification operations. So, my job is to ensure that the control framework is adequately suited and positioned to measure what matters in terms of security telemetry, giving us visibility when needed.

October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month. With the cyber threat landscape constantly evolving, what are the most pressing cybersecurity challenges organizations face today, and how should they address them?

Not a major surprise here, but generative AI, I would say. There have been so many data breaches that have occurred around the world, exposing databases filled with valuable and rich veins of information. This does not just mean a threat against the people within those databases. Still, it also impacts the ways of doing business, targeting methods, and the types of data collected for all kinds of purposes. Illicit AI models can now use these data sources to make predictions and target individuals in ways we have never seen before. I believe that a stochastic kind of interpretive probing and modeling is really going to feed the next phase of attacks.

In the past, hacking or theft attempts were often aimed at pinpointing vulnerabilities in a person's digital life. However, with the rise of AI, human limitations on focusing solely on one idea at a time are now a challenge. Now, we will have these more distributed attacks using the mined data, and we will have to work together to figure out ways to protect our customers. No doubt using AI to do so. In some ways, it feels inevitable that the biggest threat becomes the most effective defense. There's poetry in there somewhere.

An example could be enumeration attacks that can identify users across platforms, using all those data points in a single attack without needing a human involved. Machines can orchestrate and execute these super-targeted attacks, making it even more essential for companies to cooperate and share information. As AI-related risks intensify, there may be calls for increased surveillance, potentially impacting data sovereignty.

In response to this trend, there might be a push towards enhancing individual data sovereignty through tools and secure browsers, allowing people to regain control over their data. This could ultimately challenge the prevailing monetization models employed by tech companies, leading to a shift where individuals hold more power over their data. This complex challenge is finding an oft-debated balance between security and data ownership.

"With the rise of AI, human limitations on focusing solely on one idea at a time are now a challenge. I think now, we will have these more distributed attacks using the mined data, and we will have to work together to figure out ways to protect our customers. No doubt using AI to do so. In some ways it feels inevitable that the biggest threat becomes the most effective defense."

How can organizations use AI to their advantage to respond to these challenges?

In the past, the responsibility of identifying and mitigating threats fell on IT and InfoSec teams, often operating somewhat independently from the rest of the company. However, the threat landscape has evolved significantly, especially in the context of SaaS platforms, which make up the bulk of the tools that organizations use today. These systems and tools are always accessible, providing attackers an 'always-on' opportunity to exploit whatever vulnerabilities exist.

As a response to this, specialized services such as DDoS prevention, Web Application Firewalls (WAFs), identity and access management, and proxying services have crawled out of their own primordial mud. There is a constellation of services vying for your budget, and I think centralized logged and AI-driven security orchestration is a predictable next step. 

Choosing the right vendors becomes more and more crucial since if they can't play nicely with others, they and you will be a softer target for the newer generation of attackers. So when you are choosing vendors, you have to ask them questions and make them prove to you that they are ready for this next wave of attacks and speak the same language of shared intelligence.  

Specifically, in the case of protecting people from phishing attacks, technology companies like Microsoft and Google will have to get smarter at interpreting what an email intends to do. I would like to see the email kind of attacks going away, but due to a combination of ubiquity and the way the technology was designed, I can't see that in the next few years.

People cannot fight this fight alone. Businesses must select vendors who can cost-effectively limit their risk. However, navigating the landscape can be challenging as many vendors claim to incorporate AI in their solutions. By the dictionary definition, they may be right. Still, they're certainly being disingenuous about it. Partnering with strong, reliable resellers with their own long-term agenda to keep you happy can be a strategy to limit risks for newer firms, who may have less capability to spot fraud.

"People cannot fight this fight alone. Businesses must select vendors who can cost-effectively limit their risk. Partnering with strong, reliable resellers with their own long-term agenda to keep you happy can be a strategy to limit risks for newer firms, who may have less capability to spot fraud."

Looking ahead, what emerging trends and technologies do you see shaping the future of cybersecurity, and how should organizations prepare for these developments?

Each industry is going to have to behave differently because there's a different risk appetite. For example, the financial sector tends to have a low-risk appetite. Still, it relies on more traditional processes, while startups and SaaS platforms are trying to automate as much as possible. Coming through a lot of startups, I saw the rise of the aggregated log interrogation techniques developing into security staples, like SIEMs (security, incident and event monitoring), which bred SOAR (security, orchestration, automation and response) workflows, which are super helpful in the security space because they allow monitoring and responding to threats found in large datasets. SIEMs will likely need to accommodate greater volumes of data to detect multi-modal attacks that extend beyond conventional security and networking tools and in ways that are dynamically building their understanding of what a 'threat' is in a given context.

I see greater collaboration within organizations is one of the best forms of defense, but it is hard to do. There are divisional barriers, fiefdoms, disparate systems and control planes. That's why I come back to the people aspect I mentioned earlier - you need to pitch that idea and get people on board to be able to work together. AI-powered tools, particularly those focused on data mining, will become valuable in bolstering security measures for organizations across industries.

Any podcast/book recommendation for anyone reading this and getting more interested in the topic?

The first one that comes to mind is Unsupervised Learning by Daniel Miessler, a security, AI, and meaning-focused podcast that looks at how best to thrive as humans in a post-AI world.

To find out more about how Veriff’s fraud prevention solutions can help you address the threat to your business from bad actors, visit our Fraud Education Center.

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Paul Lee: “The biggest threat becomes the most effective defense”

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We are thrilled to announce Mike O'Callaghan as Veriff's new Vice President of Verifications. Mike is an operator and leader with over 30 years of experience scaling global operations and business support functions, including customer services, contact center management, and technologies. Mike has worked for the world's leading tech companies, including Amazon, Microsoft, Expedia, eBay, Skype, and more.

Meet Mike O’Callaghan, Veriff’s Vice President of Verifications

Welcome to the team, Mike! Can you tell us a little bit about how you learned about Veriff and what drew you to the company?

Thank you so much. It’s great to be working with such a welcoming group of people. I’ve been tracking Veriff for several years and  was drawn to  the company because of their industry-leading product offerings, world-class leadership, and ambitious plans for hyper-growth with elegant and efficient scaling. In addition, I feel very aligned with the company’s culture, values and mission to “make the internet a safer place, whilst being utterly transparent.” Everyone I met during the hiring process reinforced the strength of the culture, the alignment to Veriff’s mission and goals, and lastly, the strength of the team.    

Can you share a little about your background and previous experience?

My experience expands across multiple industry sectors including SaaS (B2B) technology, FinTech/FinCrime, eCommerce/retail, online travel, business process outsourcing, telco/broadband and retail/digital banking. I’ve been fortunate to work for some of the world’s largest tech companies and world-renowned brands in the last 25 years. I started my career in retail banking (way back in the late 1980’s) and I was proud to be involved in the launch of the first full UK internet/digital bank in 2000! I’ve enjoyed opportunities to work all around the UK and Ireland, live and work in Luxembourg for 5 years, and run operational teams in over 30 countries! The biggest privilege, from operating all around the world, has been the opportunity to travel, learn different languages, and experience so many rich  and diverse cultures. Operations is a people business and I’ve loved the opportunities to connect with so many throughout my career.

You have worked at some of the most well-known companies in technology today like eBay, Amazon, Skype, and others. What are some of the most valuable takeaways from working at those companies?

I’ve been fortunate enough to work for some incredible global tech companies, where I learned the importance of relying on facts and data to drive decisions at a high velocity. In fast-paced, dynamic, and complex businesses (often growing exponentially), having a clear mission and priorities married to data and facts allows one to make decisions quickly. These global platforms and recognizable brands all have multiple things in common: powerful missions and purpose linked to a strong culture and customer or service obsessions delivered through product innovations that remove friction and ensure trust in services we all want, need, and use every day in our lives. Looking back, I’ve been attracted to companies that try to solve the most challenging technology problems affecting the whole planet and its inhabitants. Often these companies are in hyper-growth mode, with massive user and transaction volumes and scale, while ensuring the products and services are “user friendly” and add value to people’s lives. For my part, I’ve learned that people are the most valuable assets and often make the biggest difference in achieving success!     

You have seen the identity space evolve and grow from quite close. How did you end up in the identity space in the first place? What do you see are some of the key trends in the space at the moment?

I stumbled into the identity space because of my background in running and scaling global operations that supported a technology platform. Identity was still quite a young and emerging industry, but the previous experience of supporting an “always on” (24/7/365) service was transferable. Some key emerging trends within the sector are digital or re-usable identities and industry-wide standards and definitions being created and adopted. Also, how “know your customer” (KYC),  “anti-money laundering” (AML), and fraud prevention/fighting financial crime all intersect, often via multiple or complementary technology solutions, that will all need coordination or orchestration while ensuring high conversion for services, no friction for end users, and privacy protection.  

I feel very aligned with the company’s culture, values and mission to make the internet a safer place, whilst being utterly transparent. Everyone I met during the hiring process reinforced the strength of the culture, the alignment to Veriff’s mission and goals, and lastly, the strength of the team.    

You joined the team as Vice President of Verifications. Can you tell a little bit what the verification division does and is responsible for at Veriff?

As VP of Verifications, I am responsible for the “24/7/365” operations, knowledge management, support and development, and service planning and delivery of Veriff’s verification solutions. The extremely versatile and agile team’s talent, expertise, and experience provide “human in the loop” signals and inputs for our automated decision-making, as well as gathers, analyzes, structures, and maintains Veriff’s in-house knowledge related to identity documents and registries in line with international standards. We support new client testing and incubation groups with revenue, account management, and solutions engineering teams to ensure a smooth and successful onboarding and “go-live” process for new clients. Lastly, we collaborate with regulatory compliance, product and engineering, and quality management functions to achieve Veriff’s business objectives.

What are some of your priorities and goals for Veriff’s verification division?

One of my priorities and goals for the verification division is to take a step back and ensure strong connections with the company’s mission, growth mindset and promise to make the internet a safer place while handling millions of individual transactions. I am excited for the division to evolve and grow with “follow the sun” operations that offer resiliency, agility, and support for new market expansions (country, languages, and forms of identification). As always, we aim to support our customers and ensure a high conversion while mitigating fraud or losses by providing a high-quality and highly accurate expedient service.

Aside from your work here at Veriff, what are some of your other commitments and passion-projects you are currently working on?

One passionate project I’m working on is acquiring a new self-sufficient 4x4 motorhome (in the US, they call them RVs) built with a composting toilet, no LPG gas onboard, and electricity provided by solar panels, lithium batteries, and an inverter!  I’m also excited about finding a non-profit to get involved with so that I can assist in using my wide experience and skills.

One thing that surprised you about Veriff?

The leadership, teams, and the company culture! Everyone has a passion for the mission; it’s clearly in the company’s DNA.

My must-read book is “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” by Patrick Lencioni.  It’s written as a fable and is very relevant to technology start-ups and newly formed or fast-changing teams.  

Best piece of advice you have received to date?

“It is not what you say, nor wish, nor hope, nor intend….it is only what you do that counts.”

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AML fines reached $2.2 billion in 2020

Paul Lee: “The biggest threat becomes the most effective defense”

Meet Mike O’Callaghan, Veriff’s Vice President of Verifications

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