Singapore needs data-vigilantes to fight rising financial crime rates

Singapore is in desperate need of skilled data analysts who can help prevent money laundering and financial terrorism. A report released on 29th November, 2018 by he Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Industry Partnership (ACIP), states that an influx of external talent or effective training for locals could help Singapore create an army of vigilantes who could help prevent the mounting instances of financial crime.

Since manual processes always come with a note of possible human error and current systems are prone to false alerts, using data analytics to observe and analyze doubtful transactions is the stance lenders in Singapore have been looking at to apprehend the problem at its nebulous source.

The ACIP report stated that, “On a national level, the relevant talent pool in Singapore needs to be grown significantly to meet this demand. This can be achieved through the importing of talent from outside Singapore as well as through the ‘upskilling’ of Singapore’s existing workforce.”

As one of the biggest and busiest financial centers in Asia, Singapore has been pumping up efforts to deal with and manage white-collar crimes. The challenge of banks and regulators in dealing with multiple dubious transactions each year, gets even more tedious as the individuals trying to fight the system learn a little bit more about how it functions.

While concerns were raised in lieu of skill gaps within the city-state, the government has finally eased its strongly held idea of allowing the importation of requisite changes and to plug into talent shortages.

The three major banks in Singapore – DBS Group Holdings Ltd., Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. and United Overseas Bank Ltd., have implemented the use of AI (artificial intelligence) and holistic data analytics to enable the detection of illegal transactions.

While Singapore, one of the hottest talent landscapes of the present world gears up for a ceremony and process that is deeply honourable, being able to truly fight financial blue-collar crimes is not only difficult but also comes with its local set of challenges. The idea is to be able to personalize these aspects of business in a way that is relatable, fool-proof and allows scope for improvement along with the opportunity to hire new recruits who are attuned to dealing with these issues.