Swift has announced the launch of business intelligence tool ‘Compliance Analytics’, adding to its compliance services suite aiming to help banks monitor and address financial crime risk.

Banks will be able to analyse their Swift traffic data to identify anomalies in behaviour, unusual patterns or trend in traffic flows, hidden relationships, and significant levels of activity in high-risk areas.

Compliance Analytics gives banks access to a single source of standardised data: an overview of their Swift-based activity, including the activity of their subsidiaries and correspondents.

Banks can identify and assess areas of risk and validate existing processes, gaining a global view of their Swift traffic. The application allows banks to develop risk models, set alerts to highlight specific areas of risk within their business, and benchmark themselves against industry peers.

“There are increasingly high expectations for financial institutions to implement policies and tools that will help identify and prevent financial crime activities,” says head of banking markets and compliance services at Swift Luc Meurant.

“This is a great new tool that can help alleviate some of the financial crime compliance challenges impacting the banking community.”

Compliance Analytics complements Swift’s ‘know your customer’ (KYC) registry initiative that will provide an online database collecting and distributing information required by banks for their due diligence processes when it goes live at the end of the year.

“The launch of Compliance Analytics marks another milestone in Swift’s strategy to deliver innovative solutions in the financial crime compliance area,” says chief marketing officer Javier Pérez-Tasso.

“The new tool fits nicely with Swift’s existing compliance services portfolio and is another example of a commitment to helping the industry cope with the new requirements in the area of financial crime compliance.”