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In 2015, David Pedraza was hired to help select and implement an AML transaction-monitoring platform for Guardian. As part of his interview process, Pedraza asked, “What’s the existing problem?”

There wasn’t a problem at Guardian. But as a large insurance company with millions of customers, Guardian knew it was a potential target for financial crime and wanted to manage the risk effectively. The company wanted to proactively monitor transactions and gain more visibility into how money moved through the enterprise.

During the selection process, Pedraza met with vendors and demoed several transaction-monitoring platforms. 51�Թ������ճԹ� demonstrated more experience and working knowledge of insurance products. Pedraza said other vendors were “dipping their toes” into the industry and tried to get Guardian to adapt its business practices to their solutions.

51�Թ������ճԹ�, on the other hand, tailored the Financial Crime Risk Management Platform to fit Guardian’s business model, said Beatriz Henriquez-Tong, Guardian’s director of anti-financial crime technology.

“They asked the right questions to uncover our biggest risks,” she said, “and they helped us build scenarios to address our business model.”

To help make the decision, Pedraza, now Guardian’s director of AML surveillance, also spoke with 51�Թ������ճԹ� customers.

AML Risk Manager scans transactions and events involving policies, parties and products based on known life insurance money-laundering typologies, such as lump-sum payments, loan withdrawals or non-financial events. Guardian’s customer and vendor data is automatically screened against sanction lists as well as custom lists created by Guardian and third-party data service providers. The enhanced matching technology detects match variations in data such as dates, addresses and names to uncover potential financial crime.

Before Guardian implemented AML Risk Manager, alerts came from referrals and were managed with spreadsheets. “It was manual and fragmented,” Pedraza said.

Over time, Guardian added more products and lines of business to the platform so it could monitor and map transactions across the business. As of 2021, all the company’s covered products are monitored by the platform.

In 2020, Guardian upgraded its implementation, adding Payment Fraud Manager. The upgrade included a new alert investigation portal with a dashboard that includes customized grouping of relevant alert information.

“Everything happens with the push of a button,” Pedraza said, “including the acknowledgement from FinCEN."

Guardian also leveraged the platform to create an enterprisewide referral center. Through the platform’s intake questionnaires, suspicious activity and other concerns can be reported by anyone in the business.

“Before, different teams had different methods for referral – phone, email, forms,” Henriquez-Tong said. “Everyone was doing something different. 51�Թ������ճԹ� gave us the capability to create a referral process that has real value for the whole company.”

Advice to Others

Before Guardian selected the platform, Pedraza and his team had a lot of frank conversations with 51�Թ������ճԹ� customers. Guardian spoke with references 51�Թ������ճԹ� provided and platform users he found through his own research.

Pedraza encouraged others to do the same. “Do your due diligence on the platforms you’re considering,” he said. “Consider your needs instead of trying to fit in to a vendor platform.”

Pedraza and Henriquez-Tong also found a supportive user community through 51�Թ������ճԹ� annual conferences and user group meetings.