93% of gaming compliance staff expect to see increase in fraud & chargebacks and 88% believe that Covid-19 presents an increased risk of money laundering and financial crime across regulated sectors
London, June 24th – Leading KYC and customer onboarding specialist, HooYu, today revealed survey results of gaming compliance managers from over 30 gaming operators, showing that the gaming industry is ready to counter an increased risk of financial crime due to Covid-19.
The leading global body on preventing financial crime, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), released warnings in June[1] that Covid-19 is helping to create opportunities for fraudster and money launderers. The FATF cites factors such as an increase in remote consumption of digital services; changes in financial behaviours; widespread remote working; increased levels of phishing; and greater financial stress that regulated entities need to analyse and counter.
HooYu partnered with the Malta Gaming Authority and AML compliance training experts, AMLGS, to deliver a webinar on the financial crime threats identified by the FATF. Compliance teams can access the on-demand version at https://hooyubusiness.com/on-demand-webinar-how-should-the-gaming-industry-counter-the-fraud-and-money-laundering-threats-from-covid-19/
During the webinar, over 30 operators shared their insight and were polled to understand their readiness as to how Covid-19 attacks the anti-money laundering regime. 88% of respondents agreed that Covid-19 presents an increased risk of money laundering and financial crime across regulated sectors.
When polled, 93% of respondents replied that they expected to see an increase in fraud and chargebacks following Covid-19.
Several other issues were explored during the webinar, including how operators were also working to understand how increased financial stress is impacting customer affordability.
David Pope, Marketing Director at HooYu said, “The fines levied on operators may make the headlines but what never gets reported is the work that egaming compliance managers do to perform KYC. From work with our clients we see operators not only understanding the money laundering risks but also transitioning from Know Your Customer to a culture of Understand Your Customer”.
Joseph Attard, Head of Compliance and MLRO at the Malta Gaming Authority, who also presented on the webinar said, “The FATF has asked both regulators and regulated entities to move fast to understand the financial crime risk posed by Covid-19. I’m glad to say that the Malta Gaming Authority has responded quickly, and we are hosting a webinar on June 26 to share our research into emerging ML/TF threats and typologies in the wake of Covid-19.”
Ray Wilson, Director at AMLGS added, “We’ve seen gaming operators build new models and new processes quickly to identify and respond to the threat of Covid-19. It’s positive to see that last week’s webinar revealed that 71% of compliance managers will be taking forward new best practices they have developed to respond to emergent threats such as Covid-19.”
About HooYu
HooYu is a global customer on-boarding platform that provides UI & UX tools to deliver customised mobile or desktop digital journeys. HooYu is engineered not only to increase the integrity of KYC processes but to maximise the percentage of customers that can be successfully on-boarded.
The HooYu digital on-boarding journey combines clever UI & UX with a range of KYC tools. Key UI & UX considerations such as dynamic customer prompts, device language detection, reminder messages, white label customisation, logic steps to reduce friction, and customised journeys all help to maximise the success of customer account opening processes.
To increase the integrity of KYC processes, HooYu is the first identity platform to blend ID document validation, digital footprint analysis, geo-location and facial biometrics with traditional database checks and PEPS & sanctions screening. Behind all our proprietary KYC technologies is an identity confidence scoring engine that enables regulated entities to use HooYu on a Risk-Based Approach. In this way, high-risk customers can be mandated to offer more evidence of identity than low risk customers.
HooYu is used by tier one banks such as NatWest, leading online gaming operators such as Betfred, challenger banks such as Countingup & many regulated firms across online gaming and financial services
HooYu also serves gaming operators with an enhanced due diligence platform that uses multiple data sources and network link analysis to reveal financial indicators to help inform affordability decisions and customer investigations.
To find out more about HooYu, contact the team here.
About AMLGS
AMLGS delivers unique, bespoke face to face Financial Crime prevention training programmes and consultancy services encompassing AML, Counter Terrorism Financing (CTF), Bribery & Corruption and Fraud as well as Social Responsibility and Criminally Funded Play (CFP) within the financial and gambling sectors.
AMLGS is comprised of AML experts and Gambling Clinical Specialists with over 60 years of combined experience within Gambling Therapy, UK Law Enforcement, Banking, Gambling Industries and relevant Regulators.
Over the years our experts have worked closely with FATF, UKGC and the FCA to provide training, workshops, consultancy and process guidance to the regulated sector
To find out more about AMLGS, contact the team here.
[1] https://www.fatf-gafi.org/media/fatf/documents/COVID-19-AML-CFT.pdf
