Briton Charles Delingpole founded the first startup – The Student Room – at the age of 16. It is now the UK’s largest online student forum. After that, Delingpole started the next startup specializing in factoring, MarketInvoice (now MarketFinance). While promoting MarketInvoice, he suffered a lot with compliance. At times he thought he was about to go to jail for aiding and laundering money, Delingpole complained. He began writing algorithms that would make it easier to find suspicious transactions, and so was born ComplyAdvantage, a global company headquartered in London that combats money laundering and fraud in cyberspace. Now Delingpole only deals with ComplyAdvantage, which was named one of the 100 Technology Pioneers by the World Economic Forum in 2020.
Every year, about $2 trillion is laundered through the global financial system, but only 1-3% of it comes to light, writes TechCrunch. And according to Business Insider, we are talking about $ 3 trillion at all. Trying to combat this phenomenon, regulators are imposing more and more obligations on financial institutions. Bank spending on staff hired to combat money laundering in the US has grown 10-fold over the past decade. Which, however, does not allow avoiding mistakes and multimillion-dollar fines for poor control in this area. A $1.9 billion fine, which had to be paid to the largest British bank HSBC in 2012 under a pre-trial agreement with the US authorities, is considered a record.
The scammers are no less of a threat. The pandemic has led to a surge in crime, Delingpole told FinTec Buzz. For example, his company found many people who wanted to fraudulently receive assistance from the German budget, since programs to support citizens and businesses affected by quarantine were created in a hurry and provided many opportunities for fraud.
The problem is exacerbated by globalization and the development of computer technologies that make it possible to commit crimes in one country while physically being in a completely different state. “We exist because globalization exacerbates the problem of trust in business,” Delingpole told the British newspaper City AM. “Many businesses become overcautious and conservative, thereby missing out on commercial opportunities, and in some cases even refusing to work with entire countries and industries.” In particular, we are talking about the risk of conducting, without noticing this, an operation involving a company under sanctions.