Valital case study: Improving a consulting firm’s client acceptance process

The situation

Despite having access to some of the most sophisticated research and monitoring tools on the market as well as its own in-house due diligence platform, a large consulting firm wanted to do even more to ensure effective controls over its client acceptance and continuance process.

Why it matters

The consulting firm is in a heavily regulated sector, where all aspects of client risk that could impact the firm need to be identified, monitored and escalated to leadership, where appropriate. Know your client (KYC) is the first line of defence against financial crimes, such as fraud and money laundering and stringent client acceptance regulations are not to be taken lightly. However, getting the process right is both costly and onerous. What’s more, non-compliance infractions can result in hefty regulatory fines and penalties.

The opportunity

The firm takes a centralized approach in its client acceptance process, with a team that serves multiple functional groups. As part of their compliance due diligence, the team searches online media for adverse news on potential and existing clients. The team can easily run tens of thousands of annual checks. They’re always looking for tools that can help them do their jobs more effectively, or plug any gaps that a single platform simply cannot fill. So, when they heard about Valital’s AI-powered adverse media monitoring platform that would help them learn more about the individuals behind business entities, they asked for a demo.

How Valital is helping

The team liked what they saw in the demo, and Valital invited them to conduct a robust pilot project over a 30-day period by seamlessly integrating Valital’s SaaS platform into their processes. They were able to run Valital’s platform alongside their in-house tool for a more accurate comparison. Now, as clients, Valital provides the firm with: 

• Real-time screening and monitoring, using advanced AI technology that scours open-source online intelligence for adverse media across a range of misconducts: business disputes, financial crime/fraud, harassment, violence, discrimination and addiction.
• French and English results that capture content and context with no automated translation tool
• Customized features that meet their specific needs
• Easily accessible technical and user support

What the client says

"Many tools claim to be intelligent and they really aren’t. Valital delivers on this. Having tried so many tools over the years, it’s tough to get the right balance. Some of them give us too much information that’s not properly analyzed and some filter out too much information. Valital strikes the right balance.”