BUSINESS
Norkom inks software deal with AIB
04-03-2008
by Deirdre McArdle
Financial software firm Norkom has won a deal with AIB that will see it roll out its financial crime and compliance software at the bank.
The deal, the value of which was not disclosed, will see Norkom's software deployed at AIB's Irish, UK, Polish and capital markets operations to help the bank comply with the 3rd EU Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Directive.
The directive requires financial institutions to take a risk-based approach to the management of their AML compliance operations. This means they have to match the degree of risk presented by each customer with an appropriate and variable level of monitoring activity, investigation and prioritisation.
Norkom's software will support this approach and will provide AIB with a single technology infrastructure for risk-based management of its AML activities, according to AIB's Group General Manager of Regulatory Compliance, Philip Brennan.
"We will use Norkom to assist us in establishing a base line risk profile for each customer at account opening and to instigate an appropriate level of monitoring activity," he explained. "Both the risk profile and the level of monitoring will be adjusted if the patterns of the financial transactions or other key factors change over the lifetime of the relationship. In this way, we can be confident that that the degree of scrutiny applied to each customer is directly correlated to risk."
While other Irish technology firms struggle amidst the current economic gloom, Norkom is thriving. The Dublin-based firm recorded a 50 percent jump in profits when its latest half-year figures were published in December.
Norkom's good run stems from the current regulatory environment, where its services are in demand. The financial sector in particular has proven to be a good hunting ground for Norkom as banks are forced to comply with an ever-increasing number of regulations. Norkom already counts HSBC, Rabobank, Western Union, KBC Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, Visa, Travelex and Credit Agricole as clients.
The firm announced in December that it had received EUR4 million investment from Enterprise Ireland, which will see Norkom create over 100 new jobs at its Dublin facility over the next two years.
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