Risk no longer halts at the edge of the organisation. As businesses rely more heavily on third-parties, cloud providers, data partners and complex supply chains, their exposure increasingly lies beyond what they directly control. From regulatory accountability to reputational fallout, weaknesses in the wider ecosystem can quickly become a company's own problem. For Alan Ludden, information security manager at Corlytics,...

The idea that a Valentine’s Day gift could play a role in financial crime still feels counter-intuitive to many consumers. Yet prepaid vouchers and digital experiences have quietly evolved into a convenient mechanism for criminals looking to move illicit funds. According to RelyComply, what were once innocent tokens of affection now sit at the centre of increasingly sophisticated laundering and...

AXA Hong Kong and Macau, a leading global insurer, has launched Quest by AXA, a new AI-powered advisory platform designed to support financial consultants in delivering clearer, more consistent and insight-led financial and insurance guidance to customers. The move is driven by growing complexity in financial markets and rising customer expectations for personalised, transparent advice, according to FF News.  By equipping...

Incard, a London-based financial platform for high-growth digital companies, has closed a new funding round on £10m.  The company has raised £10m in Series A funding led by Smartfin, with participation from Founders Capital, MountFund and a group of angel investors, said TechEU. Incard was set up to tackle what it sees as a persistent problem for founders: managing cash flow,...

LexisNexis Risk Solutions, a global data analytics company, has announced the availability of LexisNexis IDVerse for Insurance, a new AI-powered document authentication and identity verification solution. The launch comes as insurers face mounting pressure from increasingly sophisticated fraud driven by generative AI and deepfake technologies, according to FF News. With losses from AI-enabled fraud expected to reach $40bn by 2027,...

Independent specialty MGA HIVE Underwriters, a Lloyd’s coverholder focused on practitioner-led specialty underwriting, has appointed two senior marine underwriting specialists, to its newly formed Marine specialty underwriting team. The appointments see Alistair Marriott joining as head of marine and Jared Short taking on the role of head of transportation and logistics, as the MGA builds out its practitioner-led marine platform. Both...

Throughout the financial services space, modelling teams face a persistent and increasingly uncomfortable problem: accuracy alone is no longer enough. Insurers and lenders are under pressure to extract more predictive power from growing datasets, yet they remain constrained by regulatory expectations that demand transparency, auditability and clear justification. This tension is most visible in pricing and risk functions, where...

As competition intensifies in specialist SME lending, Shawbrook Bank found its growth ambitions increasingly constrained by outdated processes and fragmented technology. Despite its strong reputation for bespoke, high-touch commercial lending, the UK-based bank was struggling to manage complex deals efficiently. Portfolio managers were relying on spreadsheets and SharePoint folders, credit teams lacked real-time visibility, and capacity limitations were starting...

IMTF, a global RegTech provider specialising in anti-financial crime and regulatory compliance technology, has announced that its holistic compliance platform, SironOne, is now available through AWS Marketplace. The move is designed to make it easier for financial institutions to adopt, deploy and scale advanced financial crime compliance capabilities, responding to increasing regulatory pressure, rising transaction volumes and the need for...

Across many financial institutions, the Financial Crime Risk Assessment (FCRA) is still widely misunderstood. Whether it appears as an enterprise-wide ML/TF/PF assessment in Australia, a Business Risk Assessment in the UK, or a BSA/AML risk assessment in the US, it is often treated as a task that sits solely within Compliance. According to Arctic Intelligence, when gaps or weaknesses...