Banks are most vulnerable to noncompliance at the teller line, where turnover rates are approaching 50%, according to TowerGroup. Bank Security Act, anti-money-laundering and Office of Foreign Assets Control requirements can change year after year and are the most commonly cited shortcomings in safety and soundness exams.
While banks have basic compliance controls in place to aid tellers, most systems still require the front line to identify compliance triggers, collect required information from the customer and manually complete various forms according to bank guidelines during the transaction.
Financial institutions would be best positioned to meet ever-changing compliance demands by automating as much of the process as possible.
Compliance controls now exist in the form of front-end software that prompts tellers to collect specific required information as the transaction occurs when the customer is present; the teller is not required to know or remember to execute the regulations, because the process is automatically driven.
Customer transactions can be analyzed and filtered to simplify the review by compliance officers the following day. Compliance is ensured, because required information is captured and filed in accordance with bank policies and procedures. Systems can be configured to also monitor cash transactions that may be used to avoid detection such as wire transfers and ATM deposits.
By shifting the compliance burden away from tellers, banks can be much more confident about monitoring and reporting suspicious transactions, while enabling tellers to focus on interacting with customers.
Ed Wilcox is manager of business solutions for Benchmark Technology Group in Alpharetta, Ga.
