Norkom in anti-money-laundering software deal


23 Mar 2005

Norkom Technologies had signed up its second customer in a month to its anti-money laundering (AML) and compliance software.

Travelex, a UK-based money services organisation with offices in 34 countries and customers in 110 countries, will use Norkom’s software to detect suspicious behaviour in business transactions across the range of international travel and financial products. The value of the deal was not disclosed.

The software will also be used to profile and case manage possible AML activities, in addition to the production of compliance reporting as required by the various local, national and international financial regulators.

Earlier this month, Norkom won a similar deal with another UK firm, Euroclear, which is one of the world’s largest providers of domestic and cross-border settlement services for bond, equity and fund transactions. Euroclear said it would use Norkom’s AML technology for account and customer monitoring, behaviour analysis and watch-list matching.

Commenting on the latest deal, Norkom CEO Paul Kerley said: “The perpetrators of financial crime are often non-account-based customers and so it is imperative for financial institutions to strengthen their defences in the course of transaction-based business.”
Norkom is among a number of Irish companies going after the AML and compliance opportunity in the UK and wider European markets.

Enterprise Ireland has noted that with the advent of financial reporting standards such as mandatory electronic reporting (MER), Sarbanes-Oxley Act, 2002 and Basel II, Irish firms are in a good position to take advantage of opportunities in the UK financial services sector in particular. The introduction of MER will require companies in the UK to adopt financial documentation and processes based on XBRL (extensible business reporting language), a new electronic format for simplifying the flow of financial statements, regulatory data and other financial information between software programs.

By Brian Skelly