TECH NEWS
Luxembourg high tech to target financial crime
Logos ITS, the software editor of iDETECT, is currently strongly developing its market in Europe, Middle-East, Africa, and Asia. Its solution analyzes vast amounts of data to identify and reveal criminal risks in financial transactions.
April 24, 2017
Olivier Merlan, Deputy CEO, and co-founder LOGOS ITS
Logos ITS, the software editor of iDETECT, is currently strongly developing its market in Europe, Middle-East, Africa, and Asia. Its solution analyzes vast amounts of data to identify and reveal criminal risks in financial transactions.
iDETECT technology involves analyzing vast amounts of data to identify complex patterns in financial transactions or individual behavior that could reveal criminal risks. LOGOS ITS, the software editor of iDETECT, is currently strongly developing its market in Europe, Middle- East, Africa, and Asia. The company recently acquired some very high profile customers in the Tier 1 segment of Banking and Money Remittance and Currency Exchange Providers.
From a purely local company some years ago, LOGOS ITS has expanded its reach beyond Luxembourg by acquiring customers in UAE, Singapore, Lebanon, the Kingdom of Bahrain, Germany, Switzerland, and Morocco to name a few.
“2017 will be a year of innovation and successes.” says Olivier Merlan, Deputy CEO, and co-founder of the global financial crime and compliance solution. Like never before, the software sector is being challenged to adapt to a different pace of innovation and bringing solutions to market. Olivier Merlan feels that LOGOS ITS continued success is based on being innovative and responsive. This is especially true when some banking regulators recently fined financial institutions with hundreds of million for violations of laws.
“Many financial institutions are struggling to establish effective frameworks for obtaining complete and real-time views of their financial crime risk profile. Without these frameworks, institutions are extremely vulnerable to money laundering risks and recurring losses directly attributable to fines and sanctions.The cornerstone of an effectual financial crime risk management initiative is an institution’s ability to identify risks when they occur, define controls and continuously assess its vulnerability to financial and regulatory exposures.”
LOGOS ITS has understood, that in some environments and jurisdictions, financial institutions have frequently to do it all with reduced budget and staff. “We always have a solution, for instance, I cannot speak yet totally freely about it but in North Africa we will soon announce a joint AML/ CTF (Anti-Money Laundering/Counter- Terrorism Financing) service based on a highly scalable model that makes it possible for medium and smaller banks to leverage superior behavior detection analytics using some of the “nextgen” features of iDETECT. Through dedicated web services the solution detects in real-time suspicious activities during the money laundering or financing terrorism cycle by analyzing structured transactions, hidden relationships, and other suspicious behaviors that indicate money laundering. By mitigating the risk of exposure to regulatory and reputation risk, institutions joining the service are able to address financial crime in an easy and cost-effective way. Beyond these aspects, we are proud to say that such initiatives and organizations are also contributing to the global fight against terrorism. It is always a pleasure for me to see that our team is dedicated to working for such values, in addition to being profoundly passionate about building great technology and a successful company.”
Other large-scale technology projects are currently carried out by the iDETECT expert team, among which automated fraud surveillance and market abuse. Today, an end-to-end fraud and market abuse management requires real-time, and customer-centric fraud prevention. Providing enterprise-wide fraud detection to help institutions increasing operational effectiveness and efficiency while reducing losses and reputational damage is a subject of continuous R&D at LOGOS ITS. “What we’re trying to do is somehow predicting fraudulent human behavior. We definitely plan to introduce new features to the market this year, most likely at a Fintech event in Dubai” says Olivier Merlan.
LOGOS ITS, on the other hand, carries on developing very strong local roots.
“We established mutually beneficial relationships both STIDIA, the security expert in vulnerability management and intrusion testing as well as SEEZAM, the ultra-secure electronic safe. We strongly believe that Luxembourg can become the place to be for our kind of companies and by collaborating closely, our effectiveness and global market share will reach new heights. Our ongoing collaboration with the SnT of the Luxembourg Science University is also providing excellent results”. Olivier Merlan added, not without humour, that “with the changes to US immigration policy and its potential effect on recruiting in the Silicon Valley… and a bit of luck… maybe there is an opportunity for us to attract the most qualified software engineers from all over the world. We have to stand by our values and show that we are at the forefront of innovation”.