Nigerian banks in rush to implement anti-money laundering software
Unity Bank has become the third Nigerian bank in a month to announce it is implementing new anti-money laundering (AML) software, in this case from ACI Worldwide. This comes just weeks after the head of the country's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission visited the World Bank in Washington to talk up Nigeria's efforts to overcome its reputation as a haven for fraud, embezzlement and money laundering.
Unity Bank, based in Abuja, Nigeria, has selected ACI Proactive Risk Manager software to automate its procedures in order to comply with the national Money Laundering Prohibition Act of 2004. Last week, ACI announced Zenith Bank had also licensed the same solution, making it the vendor's third customer in Nigeria alongside Access Bank.
In early April, First Bank of Nigeria acquired AML and fraud detection technology from i-flex Solutions subsidiary Mantas.
Unity Bank says it selected ACI to supply its Proactive Risk Manager system as the software is able to detect suspicious activity quickly, render threshold reports to the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) in an acceptable format, and effectively use neural networks, rules-based strategies and workflow management software. The solution is modular in design, so it can be expanded to include monitoring for issuer fraud and managing risk across the enterprise, with an account-based view of transactions. (Source: Finextra)
