Oh, you work in Financial Crime… what does that mean??

If you were asked to explain what a financial crime team does, how would you explain it? Would you go into a long speech about Know Your Customer (KYC) checks or Anti Money-Laundering (AML) policies and procedures, ensuring proper Customer Due Diligence and Enhanced Due Diligence checks are completed or describe the complexities of data analytics and investigation procedures? 

SNORE! 

When I tell people what I do for a living they get excited about the job title but when you delve into it, it sounds kind of boring.

This is how I explain what me and my team does: 

Imagine a nightclub, lockdown is over and you want to go and party with your friends, you arrive at the club and stand in line waiting to get in. You finally get to the door and the door staff ask for your ID, they need to make sure you are who you say you are and that you are old enough to get in. 

That's the onboarding team, they conduct the KYC checks to make sure they are going to be doing business with the right people. So, you hand over your ID, they scan it and all is well, you head into the club.

While in the club, the bouncers inside are always on alert making sure party people are safe and nothing dodgy is going on. This is the fraud team, their job is to monitor and investigate what's happening inside the club, if they find anything suspicious they will ask questions and gather evidence and if they have a justified reason they will probably throw you out. 

Now, let's say you're a drug dealer, you hand over you ID to get in the club which isn't met with any problems and you get inside and start selling drugs. Of course, you are a professional, so you don't get caught and by the end of the night you have made quite a bit of money and you head home. 

Unfortunately, at some point during the night, some poor party person trying to make the most of lockdown being finished, overdoses on your drugs and is taken to hospital. 

The club management must now investigate what went wrong and how this happened on their premises. This is the job of the compliance team or the MLRO, they will deep dive into what happened, get statements, collect evidence, and interview staff to see where the process failed. 

They will then come up with new policies and training procedures for all staff members to make sure something like this never happens again.

By giving someone who has no experience with financial crime this type of visual explanation, it can make it easier for them to understand and perhaps help to change how they see financial crime in the future.