By introducing an Elimination Algorithm, UK credit card provider Vanquis, part of the Provident Financial Group, plans to reduce its manual processes and increase efficiency, whilst saving huge amounts of time previously spent processing false-positive alerts.

Following compliance testing and a successful trial period, Vanquis plans to integrate the algorithm into its existing FinCrime infrastructure.

The ‘Alert Eliminator’ is a piece of software that takes the output of a screening engine and performs an advanced triage operation on the matches that have been generated.

This off-line alert decisioning tool automates the normal process that a manual investigator performs when looking at Sanctions, PEPs and Adverse Media alerts. This reduces the burden on human resources and eliminates cost whilst improving efficiency where large amounts of alerts have been created. As a result, thousands of alerts can be dispositioned within just a few minutes instead of taking days and hours.

Chief Risk Officer at Vanquis Bank, David Poole, said: “Financial crime poses serious economic and social problems and it can have a devastating impact on a consumer. At Vanquis we are committed to ensuring that our financial crime controls are the best in the industry. We are therefore proud to work with a partner like SQA that shares our vision for eradicating financial crime through innovation.

“The investment that Vanquis has made in fighting financial crime covers a huge spectrum of activities. This collaboration delivers leading-technology for the automated management of financial crime alerts. We believe that making the best use of technology is the key to increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of our controls, especially in the handling of screening alerts.”

Jeremy Round, Managing Director at SQA Consulting, added: “Our collaboration with Vanquis has demonstrated that automated alert remediation, whilst being very efficient, can also be highly effective, creating decisions based upon many factors and a holistic view typical of a manual review approach. Vanquis’ dedication to this project is an example of their commitment to ongoing improvement as well as helping to drive real innovation across the industry.”