New York-based bank reduces staffing needs with Abrigo’s Suspicious Activity Monitoring Services
The cost of full-time employees is on the rise, and financial institutions are no exception. It is not unusual for Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) departments to feel the pinch of a short-handed staff. BSA roles can be challenging to recruit, and taking time to train new employees while meeting deadlines and conducting due diligence procedures is challenging. With insufficient staff to properly sift through alerts, banks can miss suspicious activity and face repercussions from examiners.
Staffing gap
New York-based bank's BSA Department is short-staffed
The bank, an $8 billion institution in New York, had a high-functioning BSA team of full-time employees with efficient work processes in place. Unfortunately, when two staff members resigned, the BSA team was left short-handed with high monthly alert volumes. The Senior Vice President and BSA officer knew that the hiring process could take some time and needed to stay current on alerts. He reached out to his contacts at Abrigo to discuss a three-month trial of Abrigo's Suspicious Activity Monitoring Services (SAMS). The trial would allow the bank to supplement their staff while they searched for and onboarded new team members.
Overcoming staffing challenges
Abrigo Advisory Services bridges the gap
When the bank contracted with Abrigo's team to assist their staff, they were averaging over 500 alerts a month. The BSA officer's main concern was avoiding falling behind, and he was pleased that Abrigo moved quickly to address the needs of the BSA team.
The BSA officer had peace of mind knowing that Abrigo’s analysts were experienced, CAMS certified professionals. The department had copies of each Abrigo team member’s resume and biography, and the BSA officer built the SAMS team into the bank’s organizational chart to show examiners a strong collaborative BSA team. Abrigo’s analysts are in daily email communication with bank staff, and send wrap-up emails summarizing each month’s BSA alert accomplishments. What began as a three-month trial became a year-long contract that was later renewed for another. year. The bank was able to make due dates each month and monitor their BSA processing without hiring additional staff. They were pleased to find that the SAMS team also caught fraud-related schemes; the bank was able to file SARs based on Abrigo analysts’ findings. Today, about 80% of the bank's monthly alerts are outsourced to Abrigo,
