A Big Savings in Time and Effort

HARBORONE CREDIT UNION SELECTS ANTI-MONEY LAUNDERING PRODUCTS FROM COCC

AVON, Conn. July 24, 2006 — HarborOne Credit Union of Brockton, Mass. has selected COCC’s Anti-Money Laundering (AML) product to streamline regulatory compliance. The new AML system, one of COCC’s Sentry Services, will enable HarborOne to control the costs associated with identifying suspicious transactions as the credit union continues its strong pattern of growth.

“Credit union regulators are getting more and more thorough,” said HarborOne Credit Union’s Senior Vice President – Operations, Richard Bastiansen. “We are now being asked to examine all activity from all transaction sources to detect money laundering. The COCC system will automatically examine five years of transaction history using our credit union’s rules and policies. That’s a big savings in time and effort for us.”

Increased regulatory pressure is driving many community-based institutions to rethink their approach to money laundering activity. “We were spending a lot of time every day reading reports and entering them into an analysis tool,” said Bastiansen. “The new COCC system will enable us to control the process and improve our efficiency.”

COCC allied with a leading provider of anti-money laundering solutions (STB Systems, Inc.) to automate the complex tasks involved in complying with AML regulations.  Approximately 200 organizations use STB’s automated compliance solutions world wide.

The COCC solution accumulates a permanent compliance database from multiple transaction sources, then applies pre-set and client-specific “rules” to automatically alert the credit union to patterns of exception activity and potential money-laundering suspects. When suspicious activity is discovered, credit union personnel can view all the information involved in identifying that activity plus the decisions made and actions taken.

“This is a top of the line system by any standard,” said COCC’s Strategic Products Director, Linda Stahl. “Our solution not only searches for suspicious activity, it automatically generates information for Currency Transaction Reports (CTRs) and Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) for review by credit union officials. Every step in the reporting process is documented, from the alert to the research, the decision and the filing of the suspicious activity report.”

Money laundering has been estimated by the International Monetary Fund to amount to between 2 and 5 percent of global gross domestic product, which is at least $600 billion annually. With money center banks largely protected by sophisticated AML technologies, the illegal activity now flows to credit unions and community banks. These institutions often experience operational challenges as they cope with the cost and resources required to implement effective AML solutions. Failure to act can cost even more as evidenced by a recent enforcement action which cost a New York based institution as much as $600,000 in civil penalties.

“The pressure is just beginning to mount for credit unions,” said Bastiansen. “We are pleased that our technology partner, COCC, has implemented an effective anti-money laundering solution that will keep us in compliance while containing regulatory overhead.”