Financial Crime Solutions in Demand as Nepal Moves to Grow Economy

FICO partners with ELAM to showcase solutions at national banking symposium

SINGAPORE, Feb. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

HIGHLIGHTS:

• The Nepalese government has called for enhanced governance and risk management compliance capabilities, to help combat cases of financial crime in the country.
• Nepal's Central Bank (Nepal Rastra Bank) believes that overall governance and risk management should continue to be enhanced. It has identified money laundering, white collar crime and compliance as the key issues to be addressed
• FICO has partnered with ELAM, a leading reseller and provider of technology solutions and services, to deliver financial crime solution and market expertise to financial institutions in Nepal
• FICO and ELAM will present at a national banking symposium on financial crime. The audience will include participants from the Nepal Banker's Association (NBA), the Central Bank of Nepal and Dow Jones information services.

For more information: http://www.fico.com/en/risk-compliance/tonbeller

FICO will join the Nepal banking community today at a symposium in Kathmandu to address the urgent problem of financial crime. FICO and its partner ELAM, a leading reseller and provider of technology solutions and services, will present to the nation's lenders on a new analytic approach to help reduce money laundering and white collar crime.

The Nepalese government recently called for enhanced governance and risk management compliance capabilities, to help combat cases of financial crime in the country. Nepal Rastra Bank, the country's central bank, has identified financial crime as a key obstacle to growing development.

"There is clear evidence that economic and financial crimes are some of the fastest growing offences globally," said Dr. Chiranjivi Nepal, governor, Nepal Rastra Bank, the country's central bank. "In Nepal, we can ill afford for these activities to drain our economy or to destroy business and banking confidence. It is therefore imperative that we match the technologies of sophisticated organized criminal groups, with advanced analytics to help banks closely monitor the vast volume of financial transactions they handle on a day-to-day basis."

In 2014, the Financial Action Task Force declared that Nepal was no longer subject to the organization's global AML/CFT (Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism) monitoring process following Nepal's establishment of a legal and regulatory framework to address AML/CFT issues.

"Nepal has been actively pushing banks and financial institutions to deal with the growing number of financial crime cases. The Money Laundering Punishment Act and the central bank's call on lenders to invest further in staff training are clear signs that Nepal is committed to addressing the issue," said Timothy Choon, Asia Pacific financial crime solutions director at FICO.

FICO has partnered with ELAM, to deliver the FICO® TONBELLER® Siron®Anti-Financial Crime Solutions and market expertise to financial institutions in Nepal.

"FICO's end-to-end solution is recognized internationally by overseas banks and we recognize the demand for automation and smart analytic solutions by the Nepal market. Financial institutions here have expressed their commitment and cooperation to mitigate the risks and are interested in the most effective ways to do it," said Anil B. Gajmer, CEO at ELAM.

"While we now do business in more than 90 countries, each is unique," said Torsten Mayer, vice president for compliance solutions at FICO. "Nepal's local regulations and business environment will see us localize our solution to ensure it is just as effective in Nepal as it is globally. For example, local lists of politically exposed persons will soon be added to enrich the data. Coupled with the latest analytics, this will deliver a winning approach to lenders and government."

FICO® TONBELLER® provides integrated IT solutions for governance, risk, and compliance to over 1,200 banking, insurance, and corporate organizations in more than 90 countries. FICO acquired TONBELLER in 2015, combining its focus on predictive analytics with TONBELLER's risk-based financial crimes prevention and compliance capabilities. Siron® AML and Siron® KYC are part of FICO® TONBELLER® Siron® Anti-Financial Crime Solutions, a suite of solutions for financial and white-collar crime, and risk management and monitoring, analysis, and reporting.

About FICO

FICO (NYSE: FICO) powers decisions that help people and businesses around the world prosper. Founded in 1956 and based in Silicon Valley, the company is a pioneer in the use of predictive analytics and data science to improve operational decisions. FICO holds more than 170 US and foreign patents on technologies that increase profitability, customer satisfaction and growth for businesses in financial services, telecommunications, health care, retail and many other industries. Using FICO solutions, businesses in more than 100 countries do everything from protecting 2.6 billion payment cards from fraud, to helping people get credit, to ensuring that millions of airplanes and rental cars are in the right place at the right time.

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FICO, TONBELLER and Siron are trademarks or registered trademarks of Fair Isaac Corporation in the U.S. and other countries.

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