Founded in 2015, Arctic Intelligence is a global RegTech company that has developed enterprise risk assessment software enabling regulated businesses to better assess, document and manage their financial crime risks.
According to Anthony Quinn, CEO of Arctic Intelligence, 2024 has been a ‘transformative’ year for the firm, marked by continued growth and expansion in its field of business-wide financial crime risk assessment technology.
He said, “Arctic has seen increased adoption of our technology solutions, as well as deeper engagement with clients in various industries and countries, and we now support clients in over 20 industries and over 20 countries.
“The global regulatory environment, with new anti-money laundering (AML) and financial crime laws coming to Australia and globally with a renewed focus on the importance of risk assessments has driven demand and we’ve made considerable investments to be at the forefront of innovation in this area,” remarked Quinn.
Earlier this year, Arctic introduced several strategic initiatives across its two platforms. For its AML Accelerate offering – its guided ML/TF platform – the firm launched a 14-day free trial option giving potential clients the chance to get a feel for the platform before they make any commitments.
The company also focused on building localised content in the form of its AML Program and CDD Documents, which Quinn stated have now been tailored to the laws of over 75 countries, with ten more yet to be launched – something Quinn claims helps SMEs in over 30 sectors to conduct risk assessments based on a methodology created by experts and build AML programs in compliance with local AML laws.
For Arctic’s Risk Assessment platform – a solution targeted at medium and large enterprises – the firm has delivered new features, improvements and bug fixes every quarter. Quinn emphasised that this platform is highly configurable, with many options to tailor risk and control assessments.
Quinn explained, “Some highlights in this area include data-driven risk assessments via an API, where we can assess over 450 risk indicators in under 1-minute, revamped reporting, control testing deriving the control effectiveness rating from a series of control tests (adding over 10,000 control tests), a screen forms builder to design the UI however our users want. We also launched content modules including proliferation financing, tax evasion and market abuse.
The role of technology
In an era where technology is transforming every possible operational area in a businesses’ journey, its role in transforming business-wide financial crime risk assessments cannot be understated.
Quinn said, “Technology is revolutionizing financial crime risk assessments by enabling real-time data analysis, automating processes, and improving decision-making accuracy.
“Our team does literally hundreds of demos every year to organisations of all shapes and sizes in different sectors and even we’re astounded by the number of large and very complex financial institutions that are conducting these infrequently and ineffectively using excel and word. Our platforms are so much more advanced than excel and generally the level of maturity in this space is low and overly simplistic and there is plenty of room for improvement,” he explained.
Quinn added that Arctic’s technology platforms help its clients to identify and mitigate financial crime and other risks more proactively, reducing time, substantially improving auditability and quality whilst enabling for a far more scalable and repeatable approach to compliance.
“We believe technology is revolutionising this process and we’ve lots of plans for our platforms into 2025 and beyond as anyone using excel to manage these risks is asking for trouble,” he stated.
Tech roadblocks
What are the most pressing roadblocks for businesses in implementing such technologies?
Quinn remarked, “Most companies we talk to are using excel based models and they know full well they are flawed, cumbersome and expose them to compliance risks resulting from not being able to demonstrate and explain that they fully understand their financial crime risk exposures and have appropriate and proportionate controls to mitigate and manage them.”
While this is a common challenge, Quinn outlines that many firms seem stuck shifting gears and these roadblocks tend to surround a number of key areas.
Firstly, the inability for risk and compliance functions to be able to be convince executive management of the benefits of purpose-built technology solutions is a key roadblock. Another surrounds lack of budget and major underinvestment of technology. A highly challenging one is also unwillingness to change – with Quinn explaining that often risk assessments are run by smaller teams and rolled out across the enterprise and sometimes there is a reluctance to modernise away from a ten year old spreadsheet.
Another area, Quinn outlines, is lack of deep thinking and expertise as well as a lack of regulatory action or direction that excel is not fit for purpose.
The last key area is IT cottage industries. “We’ll build it ourselves is heard often, resulting in moderate scope/functionality, cost and delivery time overruns and group think from a single company knowledge base constraining functionality,” said Quinn.
The future plans
As Arctic Intelligence looks ahead to 2025, Quinn emphasised that the company plans to further enhance its technology platforms and is currently working on a release it aims to ship in February, which will have a surveying tool and a list of GRC registers.
“Our main focus for our technology roadmap is to start building API integrations, with new data and content partners,” said Quinn.
He added, “We’re also focusing on expanding its global footprint, particularly in North America, the UK and of course expanding into the newly regulated sectors in Australia which will see 90,000 lawyers, accountants and real estate agents having to comply with the new AML laws including an ML/TF risk assessment for the very first time.”
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