MAZARS – Client testimonial

Mazars Malta forms part of the Mazars Group that serves global clients across 91 countries and territories. Mazars Malta is a leading multi-disciplinary audit, accounting, tax and business advisory firm with specialist knowledge in the gaming, insurance and financial services sector; verticals that require rigorous due diligence especially related to Anti Money Laundering (AML) and Know-Your-Customer (KYC) requirements.

Customer Risk Assessment plays a very important part of the due diligence required when on-boarding new clients. “We always had a very stringent customer risk assessment prior to on-boarding, even before we started using InScope-AML” said Alan Craig, Mazars Malta Business Advisory Partner and MLRO. “We were looking for a solution that could be adapted to suite our AML and Customer Acceptance Policies to replace the one-size fits all solution we were using. This, together with more rigorous reporting requirements issued by Malta’s Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU) led us to look around for a better solution. And this is when we came across InScope-AML the first time, around one year ago.”

“We immediately felt that InScope-AML as a solution ticked all the boxes, and the team behind the product could speak our language and adapt the solution to our needs and internal processes. Our Customer-Acceptance Policy, which is reflective of our risk-appetite, was easily transposed into InScope-AML, without making any compromises.”

Joyce Bezzina, Designated Employee, reiterated the point that the move to InScope-AML was simple and the whole process was handled very professionally by the team. “The way the team engaged, as well as the training provided that we were up and running using InScope-AML in a relatively short period of time.”

“We don’t use InScope-AML only at on-boarding stage. The solution helps us monitor clients and their risk throughout their relationship with us, by helping us keep track of company ownership, negative media exposure, change in directors, and similar information. This ability to keep us updated also extends to the expertise the people at InScope-AML provide and the proactive approach to updating the solution when legislation or regulatory updates occur. For example, every time the FIAU updated its requirements, InScope-AML was updated to reflect this.”

When it came to technical requirements, Alan made the point that while the solution is easily accessible to authorised users, the most stringent security features are in place, including two-factor authentication. “We are a service industry that is based on trust, and the right systems, processes and safeguards need to be in place to ensure that this trust is not compromised in any way. The team at InScope-AML understand this very well.” “Overall, our experience with InScope-AML has been very positive. It was very important to team up with people who speak our language, especially in such an important area of our business.”