Know Your Customer’s ESG Risks

Why ESG should be part of a Financial Institution’s Customer Due Diligence process !

Customer Due Diligence is a key component of a compliance framework and an essential tool for managing the risk of financial crime and money laundering. However, as the regulatory landscape continues to evolve and issues relating to climate change, human rights and social responsibility are gaining importance, financial institutions are under pressure to broaden their view of ESG risks when assessing their current and potential customer base.

Why should a Financial Institution’s Compliance and Risk professionals care about ESG? What are key considerations for a successful ESG risk assessment? And finally good practices and recommendations are to be found in this whitepaper.

A Buyer’s Guide to ESG Data Management Software

Are ESG initiatives meeting expectations, deadlines and commitments? Is data being consistently disclosed across stakeholders and frameworks? An ESG solution can help boards and executives keep their fingers on the pulse of activities and progress — and spot red flags before they escalate into issues. For these reasons and more, monitoring and reporting capabilities are core to an effective ESG solution. A dashboard, particularly a customizable one with real-time data, can give organizations visibility into KPIs, metrics and commitments. And automated monitoring can help ESG teams sift through mountains of information in a fraction of the time.

Preparing your organization for today’s ESG data challenges and beyond ? This whitepaper can be downloaded for free.

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Regulatory Technology on the Rise

The 2008 financial crisis paved the way for a wave of new laws and regulations in the financial sector. The financial system’s collapse had a profound impact on the global economy, which led to stricter scrutiny over financial institutions and specifically their role as gatekeepers. Increasingly, the responsibility of combating financial crime is shifting to the private sector, and there are now estimated 750 institutions worldwide that regulate activities within the financial services industry. This has a huge yet largely unseen impact on the industry. Compliance with laws and regulations is thus becoming less of a prerequisite and instead becoming a core competency for financial institutions.

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Risk in Focus 2022

Risk in Focus is an annual thought leadership research project analysing the top risks faced by organisations across Europe. It is an essential tool for audit committees and a barometer of what Chief Audit Executives (CAEs) and others perceive as their organisations’ risk priorities for 2022 and beyond. Climate change and environmental sustainability is now seen as a top five risk by as many as 31% of CAEs, representing an increase of more than 40% on last year’s survey.

The new report identifies leading risks to organisations in 2022 as: cybersecurity and data security, change in laws and regulations, and digital disruption and AI. As businesses weigh up what working models to embed post-pandemic, the risks to culture, morale and staff cohesion should not be underestimated. Human capital, diversity and talent management is cited by 40% of CAEs as among their top five risks. Moreover, the report takes its lead from COVID-19 and the dizzying pace of change and uncertainty that the pandemic has brought as regards data security, workplace fatigue, financial risk, etc. It also looks to climate change as a principal risk at what is a time of conflicting priorities for internal audit.

As a visitor to the Risk & Compliance Platform Europe, you can download the new Risk in Focus 2022 report for free.

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KYC Remediation: Mistakes and Best Practices

Regulatory scrutiny obliges banks to re-validate existing clients. Done right, it leads to better customer data and less fraud – but done wrong, it can be the ultimate money pit Visitors to the Risk & Compliance Platform Europe can download this white paper about KYC Remediation for free. This document is intended for those with a professional interest in risk and / or compliance.

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Effective Internal Risk Models Require a New Technology Foundation

Fundamental Review of the Trading Book (FRTB) regulations are part of the upcoming Basel IV set of reforms and create specific capital-reserve requirements for bank trading desks based on investment-risk models. The new regulations require banks to reserve sufficient capital to maintain solvency through market downturns and avoid the need for governmental bailouts. Banks are using FRTB mandates as an opportunity to build a firm foundation for future risk management and compliance applications that lowers development and staffing expenses, optimises reserve ratios, maximises available capital and drives investment profits. Relational database technology is not the best when it comes to banking and risk modelling and finding the right foundation for building compliance solutions is key. Neo4j answers the demands of Fundamental Review of the Trading Book (FRTB) regulations while building a foundation for future investment and risk compliance applications. Discover what it takes to create effective internal risk models and how to track investment data lineage using a graph database like Neo4j.

Visitors to the Risk & Compliance Platform Europe can download this white paper for free. This document is intended for those with a professional interest in risk and / or compliance.

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Risk in Focus 2021: Covid-19 changes the risk profile of the organisation

Let it be known, Covid-19 has serious consequences for the risk profiles of many organisations and therefore also for the audit plans for 2021. It is therefore not surprising that “Disasters and Crisis responses” has entered new and high in the top 10 hot topics for internal audit. This list of hot topics is included annually in IIA’s Risk in Focus report. Every year, the European Institutes of Internal Auditors join forces to assess the risks Chief Audit Executives foresee for the following calendar year. As the results of the report reveal, for the third year in a row, cybersecurity risks remain at the top. Macroeconomic and geopolitical risks were up 29 percent from last year. The importance of resilience and adaptability is clear from the report. The results of the report are also very valuable for organisations that have to prepare the audit plans for 2021 and it provides a good overview of the challenges ahead in the coming year. As a visitor to the Risk & Compliance Platform Europe, you can download the new Risk in Focus report for free.

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Simplifying the Customer Journey – Little changes, BIG impact

Compliance with tax regulations often involves the collection of data from customers that needs to be validated and used for withholding tax purposes and/or tax reporting. How this data is collected and validated can have a significant impact on the customer journey.

Customer relationships can be won and lost based on their experiences with completion of this important tax documentation. The financial and reputational risks associated with getting the tax compliance and reporting wrong are high. Getting the balance right can be tricky.

We are pleased to share a recent case study that outlines how our tax and technology experts helped to develop a solution for a client that streamlined their IRS W-Series Tax form process.

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Neo4j Privacy Shield Turn Privacy Regulations into Opportunity

General Data Protection Requirements (GDPR) is the European Union regulation governing how EU residents’ personal data can be stored and managed. All companies, wherever they are based, must tightly understand, control and manage their possession of European personal data, or face prosecution and heavy fines. According to PwC, 92 percent of multinationals view GDPR compliance as a top priority. Of those companies, more than three-quarters have allocated over a million dollars for compliance efforts, and nearly ten percent plan to spend more than ten million dollars each. To reap high returns from your GDPR investment, look beyond compliance issues. Instead, pursue a well designed privacy and cybersecurity strategy for the personal information you manage across your enterprise.

Discover Neo4j’s Privacy Shield comprehensive solution for EU’s GDPR regulation. Neo4j Privacy Shield helps individuals visualize their private data and control its use while internal staff members provide fast answers to privacy inquiries. It also enables privacy managers to trace data flows, investigate potential breaches, and prove compliance to regulators. Without graph technology, it’s almost impossible to understand the full lifecycle of personal data. The visualization, data lineage, connected data analysis and pattern detection tools in Neo4j Privacy Shield make it a uniquely powerful solution.

Visitors to the Risk & Compliance Platform Europe can download this whitepaper for free. This document is intended for those with a professional interest in risk and / or compliance.

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Risk in Focus 2020 Report

European Confederation of Institutes of Internal Auditing’s report on Risk to Focus 2020 has sought for years to provide some insight on vital risks of business that were defined by several Chief Audit Executives (CAEs) across Europe. The latest version of the report has been developed as a result of the progressive partnership between eight European institutes consisting of internal auditors and utilizes qualitative interviews conducted with 46 CAEs in Belgium, Netherlands, France, Germany, Italy and more working in various industries.

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