AML solutions for the real estate industry

Digital onboarding, KYC/AML screening and in-life monitoring of your client base

Buying and selling property is one of the oldest methods of laundering money.

Real estate agents must be alert to the usual characteristics that might suggest money laundering is taking place, such as an unusual sale price, transactions involving multiple owners or nominee companies and sudden or unexplained changes in ownerships.

However recently this sector is coming under increasing scrutiny as governments recognise the growing risk of criminals exploiting real estate investment to launder money. In December 2020, the UK Government’s National Risk Assessment of Money Laundering increased the risk rating for real estate businesses to high risk. Since 2017, there has been an increased flow of overseas cash and buyers into the UK property market. With this increase in business come complex and opaque structures of ownership ripe for exploitation.

Owing to the high risk rating of the sector, more real estate businesses than ever before are now subject to AML regulations. These regulations not only require robust risk assessment frameworks to be put in place but demand senior level involvement if a transaction is identified by your business as posing a high risk of involving ML.

Government enforcement agencies are increasingly penalising non-compliant businesses. One money service business received a penalty in excess of £23 million for failing to carry out regulation-compliant risk assessments or have the proper policies and control in place. It is vital to take action to ensure your business is compliant – even if your business can absorb a penalty, the reputational damage caused is not worth risking it. Give us a call and our experts will help you create a tailored solution focussed on your business model.

The RiskScreen ecosystem

The RiskScreen AML platform provides an end-to-end solution for your management and protection against financial crime. Choose single or multiple modules, as your organisation requires.

Save weeks of work by conducting digital identity verification of individuals, as well as full KYC and KYB screening checks through your dedicated web portal and mobile app.

The risk levels you decided at onboarding can then carry through to your ongoing screening and monitoring.

AML screening against sanctions, PEP and watch list data – as well as adverse media – to establish your customer’s risk level.

Screen as a one-off at point of sale or pre-onboarding, then follow this up with ongoing scheduled batch screening across your customer base – so you’re alerted about changes, and can be confident in your exposure.

Revolutionise your decision making with RiskScreen’s in-life monitoring modules.

Turn your existing static and dynamic customer information into hot data for real-time risk analytics and reporting with our truly transformational approach to data and risk management.

Further reading

Find out why RiskScreen is the smarter way to combat money laundering

At RiskScreen we work with hundreds of companies around the world from a wide range of sectors – both regulated and unregulated.

Any screening technology is only as good as its underlying data. That’s why we work to find the best providers, ensuring you get screening matches you can trust.

Resources

The latest news, commentary and events from RiskScreen. For industry insight, visit our AML insight hub, KYC360.

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RiskScreen was founded by experts in financial crime. It’s because of this unrivalled subject matter expertise that companies choose to partner with us.