ABC Anti-bribery and corruption: main challenges for banks

Anti-bribery and corruption (ABC) compliance continue to be some of the main challenges that banks and companies are facing, both in their domestic markets and abroad. On a global level, more and more countries promulgating new and more sophisticated anti-bribery and corruption legislation as well as aggressive enforcement by government regulators.

ABC Compliance measures

• Code of conduct
• Internal whistleblowing mechanism
• Corruption risk mapping
• Risk assessment
• Internal and external controls
• Discipline procedure for ethics violation

Why ABC is a key challenges for banks

COMPLIANCE AND REPUTATIONAL RISK

• Large fines (regulatory and criminal) and cost of remedial measures
• Loss of profits from tainted business and Impact on share price
• Multi-year of monitorships, reporting, cooperation obligations, and compliance certifications
• Potential debarment by government agencies, international organizations or multi-lateral
  development banks

COMPLEX GLOBAL REGULATORY LANDSCAPE

• Increased enforcement of existing regulations along with the prospect of new regulations
• Constant change of requirement by the regulators
• Multiple Jurisdiction to comply with and worldwide activities makes it more difficult for companies to establishing ABC minimum standards and rules that fits everywhere

LACK OF RESOURCES & PROPER CONTROLS

• Multiple specific local rules requiring to continuously update policies
• Lack of internal resources and subject matter expertise
• Struggles to catch violations of anti-corruption laws by suppliers and its third parties, as well as Conflicts of interest
• Difficulties to define controls and monitoring systems arising from new ABC procedures
  implementation

The reliability of ABC anti-bribery and corruption framework is thus becoming one of the major challenges for banks. These challenges, historically driven by the Compliance divisions, require the mobilization of all the bank’s value chains.

Aurexia will be happy to provide you with its expertise to achieve this.