The North Carolina-headquartered firm said its updated software will help banks alleviate pain points for compliance departments.

SAS, the provider of analytics software and services, has updated its anti-money laundering offering to help analysts in financial institutions scrutinise suspicious activity more quickly and comply with counterterrorist financing regulations.

The newest version of SAS Anti-Money Laundering will allow users to monitor more risks within larger data volumes in just minutes. The software covers suspicious activity monitoring, customer due diligence, watch list filtering and investigations case management.

“Deploying advanced analytics and visualisation tools help compliance analysts uncover patterns and anomalies so they can quickly document cases,” said Bill Fearnley, research director of compliance, fraud and risk analytics at IDC.

According to a 2016 SAS and Longitude financial crime survey of 120 banks, 19 per cent had been fined by regulators or law enforcement agencies in the past three years – of those fined, 22 per cent faced penalties of $1 billion or more.

 “It’s only when banks are equipped with the tools that allow them to monitor risks and identify emerging patterns can they really begin to isolate potential threats. SAS Anti-Money Laundering’s visual and behavioural analytics helps organisations avoid the heavy penalties related to non-compliance,” said Christopher Ghenne, business solutions manager at SAS.