What is the true cost of financial crime compliance?

OPINION: Earlier this week LexisNexis Risk Solutions released the results of its global True Cost of Financial Crime Compliance Study which polled nearly 900 financial crime compliance decision makers and found that financial institutions spent $181 billion on financial crime compliance last year.  

In Europe, financial institutions spent 3 to 4 times ($137bn) what their nearest counterparts in North America ($32bn) did and which eclipses the amounts spent in Asia-Pacific ($6bn), Latin America ($5bn) and South Africa ($2bn).

Within the regions, UK financial institutions spent $50bn and the US spent $26bn, which was quite surprising given there are 6,500 FDIC regulated financial institutions, compared to around 2,000 in the UK and found that compliance teams are typically larger within European financial institutions than any other region in the world.

The survey also examines financial institutions that are utilising various financial crime compliance technologies, such as, enterprise risk assessments, individual customer risk and transaction monitoring solutions and found these firms reported improved efficiencies, reduced cost of compliance on a per FTE basis and reduced opportunity costs associated with manual activities.

Read more on Lexis Nexis Risk Solutions website and download their global report on the cost of financial crime study.

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