BigPay improves analyst efficiency with integrated customer screening & transaction monitoring

An award-winning FinTech that provides Southeast Asians with a full suite of financial services, BigPay partnered with ComplyAdvantage for customer screening and transaction monitoring. The firm operates in Malaysia and Singapore, offering more than 1.4 million users services such as payments, international transfers, micro-insurance, personal loans, spending analytics, and travel spending. The FinTech will also be expanding into Thailand in the coming months. BigPay’s partners include the travel booking site AirAsia. It is funded by Capital A, a venture fund.

Before working with ComplyAdvantage, BigPay had a manual, ad hoc screening process. It needed to implement a more efficient one – fast – to meet its regulatory obligations. The reliance on manual processes also meant the firm faced the challenge of cumbersome batch processing during its annual customer rescreening, something that became increasingly difficult as the firm – and its customer base – grew.

BigPay also needed a solution that could be tailored in line with its risk-based approach:

“We had issues with customizability, as most platforms offer a standardized list of searches. We planned to have full control over the range of lists we used depending on the use case, transaction type, and country.”

Ashwin Nazareth, FinCrime Operations & Disputes Principal, BigPay

Integrated, customized screening and monitoring

The firm needed a flexible, unified platform that could scale across multiple markets and handle volume spikes during periods of peak demand. But with its previous solutions, streamlining these complex processes wasn’t possible – it involved too many touchpoints and manual processes. What’s more, BigPay needed a solution to automate workflow processes for name screening and adverse media searches, freeing up analyst time for more in-depth investigations.

That’s where ComplyAdvantage’s customer screening and transaction monitoring came in. BigPay was able to custom-build a single proprietary interface connecting multiple tools, trackers, and databases via a single API. The financial services firm also set up unique screening profiles for its individual markets, providing proportional controls for different products and transaction types – such as remittance and e-money. Accessible search profile configuration and fuzziness fine-tuning streamlined the process of aligning with new regulations.

“We now have the benefit of researching sanctions, PEPs, and adverse media all at the same time from a large number of sources rather than using multiple tools and databases. The time saved comes from only having to research the alerts, rather than wasting time looking for them.”

Ashwin Nazareth, FinCrime Operations & Disputes Principal, BigPay

Collaborative risk management

Throughout the process, BigPay has been able to partner with its customer success manager at ComplyAdvantage, who applies industry-wide best practices to ensure the solution is performing well and saving time in key areas.

“Customer support has been fantastic, especially with a dedicated account manager who resolves our issues promptly and keeps us up to date on our account performance,” said Nazareth. This included advice on “where we should be focusing our innovation and technological enhancements. In fact, two of our major time-saving innovations came directly from recommendations during the account review cycles.”

In the next few years, BigPay wants to sharpen its focus on key typologies affecting virtual financial services, such as fictitious identities, mule accounts, and scams. Nazareth also noted the increasing importance of collaborative data in financial crime risk management, both within the financial services industry and between financial firms, law enforcement, and regulators. Trends like these will only increase the need for the kind of high-quality, holistic data ComplyAdvantage provides.

“There’s no other solution currently on the market quite like ComplyAdvantage,” commented Nazareth. “And what it can do, it does exceptionally well.”