Unity Bank is a member owned bank, with a wide range of financial products and services available to its members and their families across Australia.
The organisation started in 1970 as Waterside Workers’ of Australia Credit Union when a group from the maritime industry got together to form a mutual financial institution for the benefit of all maritime workers and their families.
It now includes members from the mining and power industries, their families, and the local communities.
The Challenge
Keeping up with existing and new anti-money laundering (AML) obligations can be difficult and resource intensive for any organisation, especially smaller banks.
The Solution
By implementing Arctic Intelligence’s AML Accelerate (AMLA) solution, Unity Bank was able to explore different ways of better understanding their money laundering and terrorism financing (ML/TF) risks. Unity Bank can now fully document their ML/TF risk profile and also have the ability to create an AML program manual via the risk assessment solution.
Unity Bank used the in-built questions within AMLA to input information required to complete their risk assessment. AMLA is now used across the bank as a basis for risk assessments, for example, new product channels and mergers.
All information entered into AMLA is securely stored and easily accessible. As an AMLA customer, Unity Bank also receives regular updates on regulatory changes that may impact them and their clients.
The Result
Using AMLA, Unity Bank has completed deeper risk assessments and can also automatically generate reports to present to Board. They will be able to demonstrate to AUSTRAC that they had taken ‘reasonable steps’ to meet their obligations.
Client Testimonial
“If you think compliance is expensive, try non-compliance. Paying for the right tools, systems and resources always pays off!”
Veronica Michael - Legal & Compliance Officer