The research, conducted by AML Services International and sponsored by Fiserv, collated opinions from Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and fraud personnel at financial institutions and other organizations such as regulators and governing bodies. A total of 271 respondents participated in the global survey, with responses from institutions in Asia Pacific, EMEA and the Americas.

The survey results indicated the areas of financial crime of greatest concern to banks are:
- AML
- Card fraud
- Mobile payment fraud
- Internal fraud

In addition to these findings, 54 percent of the aggregate respondents indicated that a one platform solution or vendor approach is preferred to satisfy the anti-fraud and AML needs of both transaction monitoring and case management. This sentiment appeared particularly strong in EMEA with 79 percent of respondents agreeing that one platform is more effective than separate point solutions when conducting transaction monitoring. A slightly smaller percentage, 46 percent, said that a single platform approach is needed to address customer on-boarding.

The convergence of financial crime prevention operations emerged as a predominant theme, even though internal structures are not necessarily in place yet within financial institutions to execute on this theme. Of those surveyed, 49 percent indicated that the most likely benefits resulting from the convergence of financial crime risk management systems would be the improved detection of money laundering and fraud and increased process streamlining.

"The increase in volume and complexity of financial crimes is driving financial institutions to look more closely at their operations in order to be more accurate and efficient in the processing and detection of these crimes," said John Filby, president, Risk and Compliance, Fiserv. "Inefficient operations are a drain on resources for many financial institutions. As a result we are getting increasing demands for technology that moves finanancial crime prevention onto a single platform to address increasing threats from money laundering and fraud."

As a technology provider, Fiserv was particularly interested to learn that 56 percent of firms anticipated technology budgets for AML and fraud detection to increase in the next year.