Registration

Dialogue with the regulators: What should financial institutions expect?
Central banks from different countries across the region will discuss planned regulations, new enforcement instruments, and priorities in their respective counties for combating tax evasion, cybercrime, trade financing manipulations, or compliance with international regulations or enforced internal control mechanisms. Topics will include:

• MAS 626 and the new Organised Crime Act (OCA) and its effects on banks and law enforcement in Singapore. Will other ASEAN states put similar regulations in place?
• What is the stage of implementation of The Common Reporting Standards (CRS)? Is CRS effective?
• Regional repercussions from the 1Malaysian Development Bhd (1MBD) scandal and the Panama Papers
• Challenges in compliance with FATCA and OFAC
• National risk assessments as a means to identify crime threats and strengthening AML regimes
• Updates on regulatory changes in countries across the region

Tea/ Coffee Break

Renewed focus on the international payment system and trade-based money laundering
The recent incident where $101 million was illegally channelled from the Bangladesh Bank account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York through the SWIFT system to Sri Lanka and the Philippines sent shock waves throughout financial institutions worldwide. It raised new questions about the security of global payment processes and the conventional correspondent banking model. Fraud in the trade finance sector is another area of cross-border crime that seems to finally be getting more attention.

• What should banks do to review their internal compliance processes in light of the Bangladesh cyber theft?
• The role of casinos in heists
• How can trust be restored in international systems?
• SWIFT’s reaction to criticism and its five-part improvement plan
• Case study: A new digital E-invoicing ledger platform—Adopting a real-world blockchain solution to end invoice fraud and trade-based money laundering
• How to address risk and internal control failures

Creative and lean: New data and analytics solutions to combat fraud
Due to increased national and global KYC and AML regulations, banks face challenges in assembling information to effectively identify beneficial ownership and maintain internal registers. Transaction monitoring is another area where data analytics plays an important role. From big data solutions to lean technologies from startups, this session will explore ways to support the human intelligence of the understaffed compliance department with the artificial intelligence of latest designs

• Evaluating key components of effective KYC to create a cohesive and comprehensive program in compliance with national and international regulations
• Advanced data analytics for monitoring, reporting, compliance, risk assessment, and investigation purposes
• Employing data-based modelling for accurate customer risk ratings and proper pricing
• Creating actionable insights from big data, crowd intelligence, open source intelligence, and social media analytics

Lunch break

Terror financing and the latest sanction regimes
Politically fluid situations such as the end of Iran sanctions, the war against ISIS, as well as operations by terror groups in Asia and elsewhere require the constant updating of transaction monitoring, correspondent banks, and sanctions lists to retain robust risk oversight.

• Reintegrating Iran: The end of sanctions, but not the end of AML challenges
• The role of Hawala and other alternative transaction and remittance services in illegal financing
• Enhanced due diligence on enterprises and charities for potential hidden ties to terrorists
• Identifying new terrorism funding typologies, such as black market oil trading
• Effectively mitigating third-party risk
• De-risking and its unintended negative consequences for legal businesses and smaller banks

Tea/Coffee break

Cyber crime - Managing consequences instead of vulnerabilities?
With cybercrime cases almost omnipresent in today’s digitized world, hackers always seem a step ahead of firewalls and law enforcement units. New approaches to tackle this issue often appear in the financial service community, by re-thinking the definitions of ‘threat’, ‘vulnerability’ and ‘risks’. Some experts say that managing vulnerabilities is untenable and rather the focus should be on managing the consequences by using the right risk equation.

• Case studies of successful risk assessment processes
• Artificial Intelligence systems to find rogue traders and insider collaborators
• Identifying threats by finding anomalous behavior within an organisation’s IT environment
• Collaboration and threat data sharing between financial institutions and law enforcement entities in the incident of an attack
• Enterprise-wide cybercrime prevention systems to mitigate hacking risks

Fintech – What to consider in future risk assessment models?
Financial institutions today face a whole new threat landscape that keeps changing and evolving. The digital revolution throughout financial services has significant impacts on compliance, risk, and investigative functions. Fintech and various new technology platforms and business models are another dimension that has to be considered in future risk assessment strategies.

• What are the risks associated with the emerging fintech sector?
• How will regulators in Asia Pacific react to the increasingly disruptive fintech landscape?
• Mitigating risks resulting from new mobile and peer-to-peer payment platforms and financial inclusion initiatives
• Bitcoin and FATF’s “Guidance for a risk-based approach to virtual currencies”
• Using geographic, sectoral, and product line assessment to satisfy internal risk tolerance goals
• Case study: Investigation into the popular crowd financing platform Lending Club

End of conference