Client business case
The client provided curated compliance data mostly for anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism financing purposes. The highly specialized compliance information professionals of the company used simple technical tools. For client IT services the company disposed of an IT partner network. As opportunities exponentially expanded, and compliance needs and company personnel grew, in addition to upgrading the single processes and IT tools, the client wanted a new setup with an innovative IT environment, to provide enhanced services to its growing customer base in the future.
Scriptlite was engaged in 2018, at first for the analysis of the needs, the evaluation of opportunities and resources and the identification of the necessary steps.
Main requirements
- Increase capacity and efficiency, upgrade security
- Bundle similar processes
- Enhance products, flexibility of services, features for clients
- Build solutions to fit/adapt to a changing and growing environment
- Maximize external IT development under the control of internal management
- Limit dependencies on single resources and IT providers
Integrated process systems for compliance data curation, processing, customization, delivery
The systems to upgrade consisted in of tools and processes for the preparation, collection, update, production, publication and delivery of multiple types and forms of sensitive data:
- Data preparation tools
- Data curation process management tools
- Download tools
- Publication process tools
- Online tool for clients for queries to the databases
Concept, design, structure
A new system was envisioned and planned, with new tools and processes built around a central container with various datasets of different data typologies, with APIs and connections to non-structured data processing, news screening and machine learning systems for further client services enhancement in the future.
Step by step planning, implementation and testing
The system included sub-processes, tools and databases; analysis, concepts, design, prototypes and execution were planned step by step with integrated testing for verification and fine-tuning.
Containers and databases, upgrade and migration
Different data containers were upgraded adding capacity and security, speed, flexibility for fields, features, sources, selections and processing for the ever-changing client requirements.
Compliance lists and sources were bundled, integrated, enhanced and migrated to a SQL Server database in a testing environment in 2019.
Data on higher risk individuals, enhanced with new typologies, sources an features was migrated to a MariaDB.; the new database was connected to the existing processes and tools and set successfully in operation in February 2020.
Technical solutions for flexible customized deliveries to customers
Given the wide range of different information and data selections, formats, structures, forms and files increasingly needed by the clients’ customers worldwide, the client needed a flexible environment for data deliveries with enhanced automation, boosting agility and development of new files and easier to maintain exports and formats configurations.
Scriplite identified and proposed two solutions, one based on adopting an external technology, and one consisting in a new proprietary platform to develop.
The third-party technology proposed was a modern, secure, widely adopted and powerful platform that would allow the client to build, maintain and adapt a flexible a delivery system, reducing personnel dependencies and development risk. This option presented vendor lock-in risk and technology dependencies.
A newly developed proprietary delivery system on the other hand would require hiring adequate project management and developers and would engage these resources for a couple of years.
Scriptlite provided forecasts, a plan with a timeline, a pre-selection of contracts and resources, and a roadmap for the client to evaluate the options; Scriptlite set up the relevant “testing” environments and coordinated evaluations of individuals, resources and costs so that the client was enabled to choose and implement the right path for its future.