The announcement was made during the Enterprise Ireland Trade Mission to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia led by the Tánaiste, Mary Coughlan.

NCBC is the investment banking arm of The National Commercial Bank Group, the largest bank in the Arab world in terms of market capitalisation; NCBC will commence immediate implementation of Norkom's award-winning suite of financial crime solutions across its operations in the Middle East, starting with its Saudi Arabian headquarters.

With Norkom, NCBC will achieve full compliance with escalating local and international regulations such as the 3rd EU Money Laundering Directive and the US Patriot Act. Its advanced Anti-Money Laundering (AML), Watch List Management (WLM) and Customer Due Diligence/Know Your Customer (CDD/KYC) solutions will help NCBC to identify and investigate suspicious or criminal behaviour quickly and efficiently by:

• Monitoring and analysing all transactions and customer interactions across NCBC's entire client base.
• Alerting NCBC when any individual or entity attempting to transact with it is included on any of the industry's numerous watch lists, protecting them from inadvertently conducting business with known or suspected criminals.
• Enabling NCBC to assign risk ratings to customers at point of account opening and continually re-assess their behaviour over time, ensuring they are automatically and immediately alerted if unusual or suspicious behaviour is identified.

According to Paul Kerley, Norkom's CEO, "We are delighted to welcome NCBC as our first client in Saudi Arabia. This deal with NCBC illustrates our commitment to expand our business further in the Middle East. We're looking forward to working closely with NCBC over the coming weeks and months in helping them gain full compliance, become the best in class investment bank in financial crime detection, and get the most from their investment".

The deal with NCBC is the latest inaugural market entry for Norkom, which has announced a series of market firsts over the last 12 months including first in Dubai with Dubai Islamic Bank, first in Spain with Banco Santander and first in Korea with Woori Bank.