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Proactive compliance tools even more essential post-banking RC
The banking royal commission has highlighted the need for Australian institutions to ensure they have greater processes in place to proactively identify high-risk activity within their organisations, according to an expert in the area.
Emma Musgrave
Source: twitter account of Relativity
Speaking to Lawyers Weekly, Jordan Domash, the general manager of Relativity Trace, said that the handing down of the final report into the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry should encourage greater efforts to be made to help ensure adequate protection of local businesses.
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“The royal commission has put the spotlight on the financial services industry in Australia and the penalties for any future misconduct is going to be severe,” Mr Domash said.
“Financial organisations are going to need to have a process in place to proactively identify high-risk activity inside their organisation.
“Waiting for a government investigation to uncover it isn’t going to cut it anymore.”
There are many consequences that can result from not having proactive compliance tools in place, Mr Domash noted.
“Global banks have been fined over $300 [billion] since the financial crisis. After the royal commission, we’re seeing potential criminal prosecution. There is real financial, reputational, and legal risk for bad behaviour,” he said.
“Regulators are getting stricter and we expect the penalties to be more severe next time. Having a proactive compliance tool in place identifying this risk is necessary today.”
Plus, Mr Domash said, “catching a bad actor internally and proactively alerting the regulator is going to lead to a better outcome than being investigated externally”.
Mr Domash said Relativity Trace, an app recently introduced to the Australian market, can help navigate these issues, and prevent such misconduct.
“Relativity Trace is a new proactive compliance app built on the Relativity platform that allows businesses in highly regulated industries to meet their stringent regulatory and compliance requirements,” Mr Domash explained.
“It also helps reduce reputational and financial risk by allowing compliance teams to proactively monitor internal communications and flag the highest-risk content for further review, so that businesses can stop bad behavior, like insider trading, collusion, improper investment management practices, bribery, and other high-risk scenarios, before it becomes a bigger problem.
“Since introducing it to the market last fall, Trace has already gained a good deal of momentum in the marketplace and a global list of customers, including ING.”
