Bangkok Bank and SAS Deploy Anti-Money Laundering Solution

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CARY, N.C. and Thailand — Bangkok Bank and SAS worked together to implement an anti-money laundering (AML) solution across the bank’s 300 branches worldwide. 

The bank’s AML solution uses SAS Anti-Money Laundering to establish a global standard of compliance, crossing 14 other economies: eight southeast Asian markets, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, the U.K. and the U.S., according to the companies this month.

Bangkok Bank and SAS collaborated to develop a single AML solution to replace the bank’s legacy systems with more advanced analytics tools. 

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The project involved auditing each location’s regulatory needs and banking activities and incorporating global best practices and guidelines. It also called for other bank-wide changes, including new data sources and ways of working among compliance, business, and IT. 

The companies’ efforts resulted in a “SAS AML Global Image,” which was piloted at Bangkok Bank’s Hong Kong operations and rolled out globally. The Global Image enables Bangkok Bank to apply a score-based approach to risk rate its customers. The bank can apply scenarios and risk factors to detect potential suspicious activity — against threshold values specific to each segment based on customer type, risk level, and product.

Through the global solution, Bangkok Bank’s AML risk management and decision-making are strengthened by a standardized AML case investigation workflow, helping ensure AML-compliant client services. BBL staff also improved their productivity by reducing case resolution times.

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“Money laundering is a serious and growing challenge for the world’s finance system, and financial authorities around the world have put in place stringent requirements for banks to tackle it,” said Suteera Sripaibulya, senior EVP of the IT division at Bangkok Bank. “It is a global problem, requiring a global solution.

“Given its dynamic nature, we recognize that ensuring AML compliance is a continuous process, and we will continue to fine tune and strengthen the bank’s AML operations and capabilities, in close collaboration with SAS.”

SAS helped to simplify and consolidate the bank’s AML infrastructure and process, while “delivering a complete set of technical tools spanning the full implementation life cycle, from early development and testing to the deployment and through the monitoring and maintenance of the solution.” said Andy Zook, SVP of Asia-Pacific at SAS.