Event Processing and Eliot Spitzer

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Jesper Joergensen's Blog | March 12, 2008  10:04 AM | Comments (0)

An interesting article on zdnet blogs explains how the banks' reporting of suspicious transactions to the treasury played a part in revealing Eliot Spitzer's dealings.

Suddenly boring, dry stuff like Complex Event Processing comes to life in a new way. It's probably well-known that banks monitor and report transactions over $10,000. But it turns out they also look for patterns of transactions below the threshold that could indicate foul play. This is obviously a perfect job for a CEP engine combined with some BPM technology and it sounds like there are opportunities for technology investments by the banks:

Institutions must have processes and trained staff in place to identify when and if a CTR (currency transaction report) is required, including the ability to aggregate same-day cash transactions made by or on behalf of the same person, and to file CTRs correctly. While automation has made these tasks less difficult, most institutions reported that their processes still include “manual” steps; for example, most institutions reported that their CTRs are reviewed by branch managers or compliance officers before being sent electronically to FinCEN or by mail to IRS. Institutions we contacted were generally unable to quantify their costs for meeting CTR requirements, in large part because they use the same personnel and processes for meeting other BSA requirements or for other purposes and do not separately account for CTR-related costs.

(emphasis mine). Interesting. So it looks like there are some money to be saved here, but lack of visibility into the real costs of the manual processing prevents the banks from seeing the potential ROI.

Shameless plug: If anyone in anti-money laundering, compliance or fraud detection is reading this, go check out WebLogic Event Server and BEA AquaLogic BPM. This is the technology you need to automate these compliance requirements.

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