For some it has been seen as a positive step in achieving a better work-life balance, and as a prompt for more permanent change once we’re out the other side of lockdown.

However, it has raised some major challenges in the prevention of financial crime and money laundering, which was highlighted recently in a survey commissioned by US credit score company FICO and featured in Mortgage Strategy.

According to the poll, 79% of UK-based senior bank executives say that working from home has had ‘either a high or a major impact on the effectiveness of financial crime prevention’. In addition, 21% of UK-based executives cited the impact of having multiple software systems involved in fraud management as one of the biggest technology challenges they faced.

Exposing the gaps

We agree that the outbreak of coronavirus and the ensuing chaos it caused last year have led to gaps in security, not only in the banking sector but for brokers, conveyancers and any other regulated business connected with the property market.

But what it has really exposed is the fact that many businesses in these sectors have been reliant on fraud prevention processes that have barely changed for decades and were not fit for purpose before the pandemic. It’s not working from home that is having a major impact on ‘the effectiveness of financial crime prevention’; it’s the outmoded systems and inefficiencies in customer onboarding processes.

It may be compliant with Financial Conduct Authority guidelines to ask to see customers’ passports, utility bills and other hard-copy documents but, in a digital age, it is much easier to create forgeries that would pass inspection from all but the most highly trained eye. Also, in today’s post-Covid workplace we shouldn’t be handling hard-copy documents, and the prospect of meeting face to face is still some way off.

However, by embracing the technology that is available today, anybody working from home can carry out checks on individuals across multiple worldwide databases in just two seconds. Based on nothing more than a name and address, the user can pull up a fully compliant record that also checks for sanctions and politically exposed persons, and provides ongoing monitoring.

Using a single digital platform to carry out anti-money laundering (AML) checks and ID verification means the customer onboarding process can be carried out remotely, which will shore up any security concerns about working from home.

In addition, senior management can have a real-time ‘watching brief dashboard’ on all checks and outcomes, ensuring risk procedures are adhered to by those individuals running the platform.

Seize the moment

With hybrid working models looking to be more likely in the future, regulated businesses need to act to ensure that their home-based workforce is not responsible for any failings in AML compliance when it’s the system itself that needs overhauling.

There is a real opportunity now to make this change to a more tech-based process, which not only makes sense from a compliance perspective but will make your business much more efficient and secure.

John Dobson is chief executive of SmartSearch