Sample Engagement: Risk Management & Regulatory Compliance

Client Business Challenge

To comply with the Anti-Money Laundering (AML) provisions of the U.S. Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), a leading bank had to validate the risk ratings of several thousand customers, turning to M Squared to help organize and expedite an internal audit of the records. The work needed to hold up and be completely defensible during a federal compliance exam.

M Squared Approach

After working with the client to determine precise needs, M Squared hand-picked a team of people with complementary skills to implement the audit. A project manager, several former bank examiners, and multiple investigators began work just six days after the client called. Due to looming deadlines and the bank's limited internal resources, the M Squared team worked nights and weekends to meet the aggressive timeline.

In addition to broad knowledge of regulatory compliance issues, the team possessed:

  • Strong investigative and analytical skills
  • Familiarity with internal process flows in the banking sector
  • The ability to communicate with a wide variety of stakeholders, including senior executives, analysts, audit teams, and regulators

Deliverables

  • Develop a cross-functional process to quickly collect and audit disparate information for thousands of customer account files.
  • Provide a complete audit of risk ratings and "Know Your Customer" profiles for thousands of accounts.
  • Extrapolate risk trends.
  • Provide quality control processes.
  • Normalize reporting to management.

Results

The M Squared team's project deliverables prepared the bank for a full federal compliance exam. They not only showed defensible risk ratings, but also demonstrated the bank's ongoing capacity to remain compliant with AML regulations.