Dealing with a financial crime crisis - whether that be a backlog of suspicious reporting that has built up, facing de-risking by a partner or finding out that a sanctions process has been working ineffectively - can be an especially stressful time for clients, particularly if the issues could lead to regulatory intervention, potential losses or the restriction of banking or payments facilities.
This is not to mention the obvious and negative impacts that such a crisis can have on customer trust and the potential reputational impact; in many cases, it can be a matter of survival for the business and brand, where trust is hard won but so easily lost.
So, we wanted to share some insight on how our team approaches these tasks to help readers be better prepared and have a head-start if you find yourself in the position of crisis managing a response to financial crime issues.
Understand the nature of the problem. This sounds like an obvious place to start but it is absolutely critical to everything that follows. If you do not genuinely understand the root cause of the issue your are facing, it makes it very difficult to put in place a response that is effective and proportionate. So for example, if you are dealing with a significant up-tick in fraud or failings in AML or sanctions controls, you need to efficiently and effectively understand the nature of the problem so you can identify the core contributing factors and develop a proportionate response.
Develop a considered plan of action. Once you have identified the root cause/s of an issue, you need to ensure that you develop a response plan that is action focused and targeted on addressing those specific items as well as factoring in any linked or dependency tasks. For example, it is pointless implementing a new tool or process unless you train those involved in using the tool, otherwise you may just make things worse by increasing operational risk. It is worth bearing in mind that you must be able to demonstrate to your stakeholders that tangible action has been undertaken.
Mobilise effectively. This covers not only how you engage the services of and mobilise external parties but also those internal stakeholders or your support network. This is a careful balancing-act against the needs of normal daily business. Depending on the nature of the issue, segregating resources to focus on the crisis can be most effective. Our view of mobilisation is making sure all those involved very clearly understand the issues at hand and are aligned to the common goal of solving the problem, and that those involved have the commensurate level of accountability and authorisation from senior management. This is no time for egoes or political wranglings.
Ensure transparency. We often get asked ‘what should we say to our bank partner’ or similar. Our advice is always the same and that is you should be transparent. In a crisis scenario, you are aiming to maintain the trust you have built with all your stakeholders and transparency and openness are key values underpinning trust. We can confidently tell you from experience that one of the fastest ways to make a difficult situation even worse is by developing an opaque strategy with your partners - when they find out, trust goes out of the window, making the situation far worse. Instead, communicating the issue, along with regular situation reports and plans for resolution will really help to continue the trust you’ve worked so hard to earn.
Accurate and effective communication. This needs to focus on the communication intra-team but also the flow of information to wider internal and external stakeholders. In our view there is a big difference between communicating and communicating effectively. We define effective communication as ensuring the content is received, understood and a behaviour influenced, i.e. action is taken. Accuracy in communication and information is important in a crisis scenario and at times is an area that can suffer from the impact of stress. There are times when a 70% solution on time is going to be better than 90% that is late but accuracy becomes really important when you start to communicate with stakeholders, especially those externally. Accurate and simple communication (underpinned by high quality and accurate information) creates a sense of confidence that the situation is in-hand and under control.
Continuous Evaluation. Once you have expended effort developing a response to the issue or crisis and have started to execute, it is vital to constantly evaluate progress and impact. Has anything changed? If it has, what are you going to do about it, how and when? The re-evaluation should be ongoing but it is also a critical process once you get to a point you have achieved your objectives and exited the crisis management situation. A wash-up and/or de-brief is a vital activity as it captures lessons learned and facilitates organisational learning.
The FINTRAIL team has developed deep expertise supporting international banks, FinTech, payments and regulated sectors in response to financial crime or regulatory crisis scenarios, drawing on our capabilities across financial intelligence & investigations, compliance advisory, technology, legal and communications. Our multidisciplinary response team can mobilise rapidly in support of a client crisis, providing executive level guidance and peace-of-mind while also delivering operational impact, all backed up by a support network and follow-on technical capacity as required.
If you would like to discuss managing a crisis further, learn more about how FINTRAIL can help your organisation or to discuss any other financial crime topic feel free to get in touch with the team.