The German bank says that it required a scalable system which would integrate quickly with its central data processing system, and enable it to meet anti-terrorism embargo list compliance. ACE Software’s product takes its name from the US list OFAC, but also scans messages against other national and international lists.
The system has been in production for two years, ensuring Commerzbank compliance with all relevant embargoes. ACE Software says that currently it processes between 70,000 to 80,000 messages a day, but this will rise to 100,000 with the integration of the bank’s investment banking division, and is expected to rise 10% per year thereafter.
OFAC Guard has ensured our compliance in a cost effective manner, for a project where there is no commercial upside, said Ulrich Henninger, VP of international finance applications at Commerzbank. The product’s low false positive ratio and flexibility for our end-users has avoided negatively impacting our high STP rate for cross-border payments.
OFAC Guard uses intelligent natural language processing features to scan financial messages for all types and formats, including non-standard message types like faxes. It identifies blacklisted entities in transactions and highlights them before transactions are processed.
