State Bank of India (SBI) and Accuity win the Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Technology Implementation of the Year 2016 at The Asian Banker Awards today.

SBI, India’s largest commercial bank and a Fortune 500 company, worked with Accuity, the leading provider of risk and compliance solutions, to improve its anti-trade-based money laundering processes. The project is at the forefront of best practice, going beyond the conventional screening checklist to ensure all elements of trade transactions are screened – including Dual-Use Goods information, Vessels, Ports and Shipping data. SBI can now be confident that goods that are traded for illicit purposes will be flagged as part of its screening processes in branches across 20 countries, by trained personnel, with decision making powers at the local level to escalate suspicious trades as they discover them. SBI has enhanced capability to prevent trade-based money laundering while improving operational efficiency.

Mobasher Zein Kazmi, Head of Research, Asian Banker, said: “SBI and Accuity were the clear winners in the AML category. At a time of increasing regulatory focus on trade-based money laundering, SBI is at the forefront of forging industry-best practice with its breadth of screening capability and localised, efficient decision-making.”

Hugh Jones, CEO, Accuity, commented: “Accuity is honoured to win the Asian Banker Award with SBI. Winning this award means a great deal to us – as it recognises our innovation in dual-use goods screening and our commitment to continuing innovation and partnership with our clients.”

As a result of this project SBI enhanced its ability to prevent trade-based money laundering while minimising false positives and keeping the good trades flowing. A strong collaboration between Accuity consultants and SBI business and compliance teams ensured this multi-country project was completed in under two months.