AMLCC launches into the legal sector

The only online, one-stop AML solution that offers all the tools regulated businesses need to stay compliant, now available for law firms -

LONDON, UK, July 27th, 2023 - AMLCC, an AML solution created by a regulated professional to solve the complexities of staying compliant, is today announcing its launch into the legal sector with full support for all AML regulated firms. Unlike all other solutions available, AMLCC is the only one to offer a fully integrated, cloud-based AML compliance, risk management and education platform that has been proven to enable 1000s of UK businesses to pass their supervisory visits. The service costs from a little as £800/year for a three-person law firm and is a SaaS solution available at www.amlcc.com.

Licensed insolvency practitioner and chartered accountant, Richard Simms, created the first version of AMLCC in 2008 to effectively and efficiently solve the challenges that regulated businesses have in complying with increasingly complex anti-money laundering rules and regulations. Since then, the solution has evolved into an advanced cloud-based software that is currently used by more than 15,000 professionals in the accountancy, audit, tax, insolvency, TCSP and bookkeeping sectors and is endorsed by, or partners with, a number of accountancy supervisors, including IFA, AIA and AAT. AMLCC was also the first AML software provider to achieve technology accreditation by the ICAEW. AMLCC is being made available to legal professionals for the first time following a significant investment to tailor the platform to the requirements of the legal sector.

AMLCC is suitable for any legal professional that is regulated for AML. This includes those who are supervised for AML by the Law Society, the General Council of the Bar, the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives and the Council for Licensed Conveyancers.

The SRA is the delegated supervisor for 6,408 solicitor firms in England and Wales for the purposes of AML. It operates a rolling program of firm reviews to check on their compliance and it publishes the results of these in a publicly accessible forum. Warning notices are issued where firms are found to be failing to uphold their obligations and more punitive measures including fines are issued against firms that fail to remedy any deficiencies once identified. In July 2022, the SRA’s fining powers were increased from £2,000 to £25,000. It exercised these powers in January 2023 by levying a £20,000 fine against a small firm that failed to put in place a firm-wide risk assessment, sending a clear message to sector as a whole to ensure AML practices are to be kept up to standard. Further strengthening this message, the SRA is expected to be granted powers to levy unlimited fines as a part of the Economic Crime and Transparency Bill currently making its way through Parliament.

Richard Simms, Founder and Director of AMLCC, said: “As a regulated professional myself, I know that compliance with AML regulation isn’t always easy. It can be time consuming and, if not done properly, fraught with risk. Governments around the world, including in the UK, are increasingly seeing the most effective ways to tackle organised crime as tightening anti-money laundering regulations, conducting more frequent AML inspections on regulated firms and levying high profile, highly dissuasive penalties for breaches. If used properly, AMLCC can radically streamline AML compliance for law firms and can ultimately work seamlessly with the firm’s existing onboarding and client management practices.”

Money laundering costs the global economy over US$2 trillion a year[1]. In the UK alone it is estimated to cost the economy £37 billion. AMLCC works together with partners Gentium UK - a global provider of AML and virtual asset and related training, supporting Governments, Government bodies, law enforcement, border officials and businesses – to protect regulated businesses from the consequences of being unwittingly involved in money laundering.

Andrew Tennant, Director of Gentium UK, commented: “We’re delighted to have worked with AMLCC since 2018, and now on the launch of their online platform in the legal sector. AMLCC is the leading solution we recommend for the effective and efficient detection, prevention and reporting of money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing in regulated non-financial businesses.”

AMLCC provides an interactive set of connected tools to fulfil all of a business’ legal AML obligations – all online, all in one place. User features include:

• Online training for all employees and agents along with additional training for senior management, with user tests and certification saved in an online audit trail.
• An interactive business risk assessment tool to assess the risks faced by the firm as a whole along with the risks faced by specific department or service lines.
• A fully user editable AML policy, controls and procedures content framework that helps the user to ensure they have considered all aspects of a business’ AML risks and document how measures are applied by the firm.
• Multiple entity type client risk assessments (corporate, personal, trust etc) make the onboarding and client risk management process specific to each client entity type. Secondary risk assessments are available for individual client transactions where required.
• Grouping of multiple parties through the transaction feature to simplify managing and reporting on complex transactions.
• A history of firm and client risk assessments, and AML PCPs, is kept through time stamped reports with the live version available for update at any time making risk assessment both a comprehensive and an iterative process. Reports are downloadable as PDF.
• Risk assessments include a detailed audit trail for each change made, including the person making the change. Details of why changes are made are included in the comment box feature which is common to all risk assessments. Risk mitigation steps can be approved by senior management through the risk mitigation feature.
• Where there are common risks considered at both a firm and client level the firm can click through from the firm wide risk assessment to see which clients present that risk.
• Internal suspicious activity reports can be made from staff to senior management via the AMLCC SAR reporting tool. The internal reports take the form required by the NCA and can be easily reviewed by senior management to consider onward reporting.
• A summary dashboard shows the live status of client risk assessments, forthcoming AML work (such as client risk assessments which ‘expire’ in the next 4 weeks, date business wide risk assessment or PCPs need updating etc) as well as the firm’s compliance status.
• Immediate proof of a firm’s compliance to its supervisor or law enforcement as necessary including a document storage & management system for each client and risk.
• AMLCC allows a firm to give supervisors on-site, or remote, read-only access to the firm’s AMLCC account, making inspections quicker and more straightforward.

Further details of AMLCC can be found at www.amlcc.com