LONDON & NEW YORK-- February 04, 2022 -- ComplyAdvantage, a global data technology company transforming financial crime detection, today announced the availability of the firm’s much anticipated annual report - The State Of Financial Crime 2022. Designed as a strategic guide for global compliance teams, the report lays out the emerging threats that governments and financial institutions will face in 2022, along with prescriptive recommendations for how compliance teams can respond, and ensure they’re able to act proactively.

Based on a survey and selected interviews conducted in November 2021, the report shares insights and observations from 800 C-suite and senior compliance decision makers who participated from North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. The respondents represented a range of organizations across enterprise banking, investments, crypto, insurance and FinTech.

The State Of Financial Crime Report 2022 uncovers the financial crime trends that compliance officers are most concerned with in the coming year. Specifically, the 49 page report dives into new themes such as the cybersecurity challenges generated by remote/hybrid working; the implications of ongoing supply chain disruption; the rising threat of ransomware; the evolution of key global sanctions regimes and more. Now in its second year, the survey also offers insights into how compliance trends and challenges have shifted over the course of the pandemic.

“2022 will prove to be yet another challenging year, given the digital acceleration caused by the pandemic, the continued pace of innovation and market adoption of crypto services and the ever changing sanctions landscape ignited by ongoing geopolitics,” said Tom Keatinge, Director, Centre for Financial Crime & Security Studies at RUSI. “Counterrisk intelligence will be a key element in ensuring the FinTech community remains current on the multifaceted threat trends that will confront their businesses.”

A sample of key insights from the report include:

· SAR filing rises: The continued volatility of the financial crime landscape, alongside the rapid rise in new technologies and payment methods, was reflected in the 2021 survey. 80% of firms said they filed more suspicious activity reports (SARs) in 2021, compared to 70% who said the same in 2020. Almost a third of respondents (31%) said they filed 10-20% more SARs in 2021 compared to 2020.

· Cybercrime concern grows: Cybercrime overtakes fraud as the top predicate offense of concern: When asked about the predicate offenses they are screening against , there was a notable drop in concern about fraud — 61% cited this in 2020, compared to 37% in 2021.

· Geopolitical hotspots heat up: China, Russia and North Korea were the top 3 firms globally are most concerned about.

· Crypto becomes the norm: Cryptocurrencies and virtual assets went mainstream in 2021 — just 2% of survey respondents said they are not considering crypto services and never will.

“Reports are great but avoiding regulatory fines or business shutdowns is even better! As a company focused on counterrisk intelligence, we will continue to share our vital insights, so that our customers, partners and the greater FinTech ecosystem can protect their businesses from unwanted financial crimes,“ said Charles Delingpole founder and CEO of ComplyAdvantage. ”As the tide of new financial services is on the rise, so is money laundering and related crimes. Informed teams that are able to assess the known risks in the year ahead will be best placed to protect the integrity of their businesses.”

Already the preferred choice of some of the world’s largest banks, enterprises and high-growth FinTechs, ComplyAdvantage uses machine learning and natural language processing to help regulated organizations manage their risk obligations and prevent financial crime. The company’s proprietary knowledge graph called ComplyData™ is derived from millions of data points and billions of insights that provide dynamic, real-time insights across sanctions, watchlists, politically exposed persons, and negative news.

In 2021 ComplyAdvantage saw record growth fueled by more than 1 billion searches across 150 million entities that are monitored daily in 2021. Usage across the company’s AML (anti-money laundering) solution sets hit record levels with searches volumes doubling quarter over quarter for the company’s Customer Screening and Monitoring solution while Transaction Risk Management volumes increased by 4x. In 2022, the company anticipates its growth momentum to continue to hit record levels.