We fight financial crime with a holistic view of risk across an organization: NICE Actimize

The Silicon Review

“Fighting financial crime. It’s what we do.”

Safeguarding your organization against financial crime is critical. How do you assess the risks you face, stay compliant with ever-changing regulations, and keep one step ahead of the criminals? Fight back and fight hard with NICE Actimize. In 1999, NICE Actimize was founded (as Actimize) by specialists in business intelligence and data warehousing. The company focused its attention on building packaged trading compliance, anti-money laundering and fraud prevention software solutions for the financial services industry. Actimize was acquired by NICE Systems in 2007 and has grown into one of NICE’s three main lines of business.

Standing tall among peers

President’s view: We are known as innovators – but we are unique from the competition in being highly market driven and laser focused, creating technologies to meet and anticipate market demands to reduce operational risk and lower costs. We tell a unified financial crime story – We tell a unified financial crime story -a financial crime portfolio of AML, fraud and trade surveillance on a single platform and operations that find unusual or anomalous behavior earlier and faster than the competition. The enhancements that NICE Actimize builds into any new product release are driven by multiple stakeholders and market requirements. Market requirements come from many places including: clients, partners, prospects, competition, continuous market research on regulatory and operational changes, and more.

A key mechanism for collecting input from clients is NICE Actimize’s Product User Groups. Occurring multiple times throughout the year, in selected geographical locations for the convenience of globally located customers, the users of our software meet face to face with NICE Actimize’s Product Management Team to directly view and influence roadmaps and product decisions. These discussions help shape our product planning both near and long-term and help our clients to align their budgetary and personnel planning accordingly.

NICE Actimize vs. Financial Crime
Whether it is anti-money laundering, trade surveillance, or fraud prevention, NICE Actimize offers end-to-end solutions to mitigate financial crimes from being committed. Its case management expertise provides a unique platform that allows disparate technologies to work together more effectively from both a solution and operational perspective. Most important, clients can be confident that the business remains cutting edge in adopting new technologies in such areas as behavioral analytics, machine learning, and other advancements to keep the product roadmaps fresh with new and emerging challenges. R&D remains a big investment focus, ensuring customers will always have the latest developments incorporated into their use of the Actimize platform.

The future’s focus areas
The company believes that it is and will continue to be the world’s leading provider of financial-crime prevention solutions for the financial services industry. Future focus areas that will build on this current success include incorporating new regulations, new technologies, and new work processes into its offerings so that the clients and partners continue to prevent illicit and manipulative activities from occurring on their systems and infrastructure.

It is all about customers
While NICE Actimize is known for its financial crime software that supports large global financial institutions, it also addresses a wider set of target industries such as gaming, technology companies, alternative payment providers, digital wallets, and more. For example, the company recently launched its AML Essentials solution, that enables clients to use Actimize’s core anti-money laundering offerings via the cloud. NICE Actimize has more than 400 mid-tier and large-scale clients across 6 continents and 70 countries, supporting10 of the top 10 US banks; 10 of the top 10 EU banks; and 4 of the top 5 Asia-Pacific banks. They’ve also expanded the base to include non-banking customers, including but not limited to the gaming industry, other well-known technology companies, and non-traditional alternative financial services providers.

NICE Actimize’s customer satisfaction surveys continue to show year-over-year improvements. The company’s number one focus is finding new ways to improve processes, while bringing new technologies that further benefit customers. A number of awards, made possible by the voting of customers, are also indications of its leadership. For the third year in a row, its Anti-Money Laundering Compliance solutions were selected as “best” by Waters Technology Rankings. In addition, Risk Magazine also awarded its case management solutions the “Op Risk technology product of the year” in 2016. These and other accolades, along with high growth, are indicators of continued customer satisfaction.

“For our clients, fighting financial crime is paramount to the success of their business, and technology is critical to this effort. Our collaboration with NICE Actimize provides organizations – and not just financial institutions – with the advanced analytics solutions they need to protect themselves as the stakes for getting the necessary controls and processes in place continue to rise.” – John Sabatini, PwC’s Advanced Risk and Compliance Analytics
Solutions Leader.

“By combining our intellectual capital, both companies are working to serve a common purpose of helping society solve important problems and enhancing the controls that our clients absolutely need in today’s rapidly changing risk environment.” – Vikas Agarwal, Partner and PwC’s Actimize Alliance Leader.

Meet the Financial Crime Fighter

Joe Friscia, President: Joe Friscia has served as the President of NICE Actimize since 2014. He is responsible for leading the division’s vision, strategy and execution. Friscia has more than 20 years of experience in positioning, growing and scaling high-tech firms. Prior to joining NICE Actimize, Friscia served as President of BAE Systems’ (LON:BA) Applied Intelligence Americas business, where he was responsible for integrating and expanding several acquired security companies as well as launching its emerging cyber business. He joined BAE when BAE Systems acquired Norkom Technologies, where he had served as General Manager and Executive Vice President of the Americas. Prior to Norkom, Friscia was part of the executive team of Pegasystems Inc., the leading Business Process Management software company, from its first year through taking it public in 1996. Friscia holds an MBA degree from Adelphi University and a B.A. from Long Island University.