We’ve Just Launched Avid AML — An Anti-Money Laundering Platform
Avid AML is a new RegTech platform designed to help small-to-medium businesses around the globe satisfy anti-money laundering (AML) compliance regulation.
Some of the world's most corrupt acts; modern-day slavery, terrorism, human trafficking, the illegal wildlife trade, organ trafficking, and child sex exploitation are made possible by money laundering. Trillions of dollars finance these crimes — an estimated 2% to 5% of GDP per year, or USD$800 billion — $2 trillion.
Governments around the world are trying to address money laundering and more effort is being put into detecting laundered money and criminal organisations. As such, many countries now have strict AML regulations, and companies operating in financial services — more than 4 million around the world — often must fulfill a long list of obligations, spending tens of thousands to do so.
Currently, companies spend more than $180 billion per year to be compliant with regulation.
The Birth of Avid AML
For more than 25 years, Daniel Rogers managed Global Trade and Transaction Banking relationships, and his clients were among the largest 200 multinational firms in the world. Across metals and mining, military hardware and software, fast moving consumer goods and financial institutions, Daniel witnessed how capital navigated the financial system and how tax havens, legal structures and multijurisdictions enabled bad actors to avoid tax, utilise child labour and fund many of the world’s most deplorable acts.
Driven by this knowledge, and an understanding of how companies struggle to detect fraud and comply with AML legislation, Daniel left the banking sector to do something about it. After meeting Propellerheads founder Andrew Weston, Daniel and Andrew began building a better way for small and medium sized companies to comply with AML legislation and detect fraud.
Avid AML offically launched to a room full of supporters, partners and media last night in Auckland’s CBD, and our interview with NBR has just been released.
Supporting Emerging Markets
While anti-money laundering is a reality across the globe, some markets are better equipped to keep up with compliance regulations in order to protect themselves than others.
Avid AML has been designed to support small-to-medium businesses in more developed markets, like New Zealand and Australia, as well as the emerging markets of North Africa, the Middle East and South East Asia, which are not only less mature in AML compliance but also have less available compliance expertise.
Our First Key Partnerships
Avid AML is partnering with DataZoo, a leading provider of electronic verification for compliance with international AML, counter terrorism (CT), know your customer (KYC), age verification and fraud detection in the APAC region.
Avid AML is also partnering with Transformation Professionals, a regional partner supporting the Middle East and Pakistan markets. This partnership provides Avid AML with access to regulators, fraud and risk management expertise and a full sales and service team in the region. Avid AML will be one of the first external companies to have access to Pakistan National Database & Registration Authority (NADRA) identity date.
A case study is Pakistan. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) deemed Pakistan as non-cooperative in the global effort to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism, and in order to encourage the country to improve regulatory regimes and establish AML/CFT standards and norms, religated it to the FATF member country Grey List. Pakistan has now been working with FATF to comply with AML requirements and seeking inclusion in the FATF White List which is where the majority of Western nations sit.
To operate in global markets and gain legitimacy in the West, as it wants to do, Pakistan’s financial records need to be auditable on a mass scale. Due to its Grey List status, there are very few AML products available to companies in Pakistan.
The Avid AML + Transformation Professionals partnership in Pakistan will allow us to roll out quickly to their customers quickly, and build credibility with Pakistan’s government as being a solution tried and tested in reputable Western markets.
Where to from here?
AvidAML is raising investment capital to support the following:
HIRE — Make key early hires and in-country leads.
BUILD — Accelerate the development of key features that we know customers want, and will be persuasive in converting them from their current AML compliance framework.
SCALE — Even though our overheads and cost of entering a new market as a SaaS product is much lower than most businesses, we are looking to scale quickly and some markets have unique requirements to accommodate, like the need for proof of funds in country or sovereign data storage.
Want to be involved? You can reach out to Daniel Rogers here.
