Acasta have provided insurance facilities to clients throughout the UK and Europe since 2006. Their partners include retail insurance brokers, insurance wholesalers, MGA’s, solicitors, claims management companies, third party administrators and warranty providers.

The Brief

Cheadle based insurance firm, Acasta Europe Limited were looking to drive efficiencies and reduce the manual workload for their compliance department. Prior to using SmartSearch, Acasta Europe Limited were completing their AML checks manually, leaving their processes slow and disjointed between different departments. This led to poor compliance oversight and the team were spending 3-4 hours per week meeting their AML obligations.

The main motivator to switch to SmartSearch was the cost-saving opportunities, as fulfilling all their AML obligations via one centralised system would save major time and resources for Acasta Europe Limited compared to other competitors.

The Solution

Acasta Europe Limited mainly took advantage of the UK individual check, performed in just a few clicks and is now embedded into their day-to-day processes, automatically triggering enhanced due diligence to confirm a “False Alert” has been made. This offers a much more dynamic approach as the platform is constantly monitoring for any relevant changes to the client’s status, ensuring Acasta Europe Limited meet their AML obligations now and in the future.

International checks also became a huge part of Acasta procedures as it helped monitor their overseas partners whilst negating the need for face-to-face communication. By integrating Know your Business (KYB) checks, Acasta were able to know exactly who they are working with without requesting any physical documentation, giving them a much more robust and accurate risk-management process.

Ongoing monitoring was also a challenge for Acasta as they were not able to re-run client checks and monitor for any changes to their status. However, thanks to our ongoing monitoring service, our platform takes updates from the Dow Jones watchlist daily, providing complete peace of mind each client is checked against the most up-to-date PEP and Sanction list.

“The whole process from the start with SmartSearch has saved Acasta time and money, whilst also providing more accurate results and monitoring. Any questions during the set up and since have been answered comprehensively and quickly.”

- Nia Roberts, Audit & Compliance Manager, Acasta Europe Limited

The Results

• Saved valuable time, money and resources
• Comprehensive solution
• Improved compliance oversight

During the relationship, SmartSearch has allowed the team to halve the time spent on manual tasks per week. This has saved the company valuable time, resources and money and it is these results, alongside a dedicated Customer Success team that is passionate about helping customers achieve their required results from its AML platform.

They now have a much more comprehensive solution to verifying clients in the UK and internationally, which is in line with regulations and monitoring requirements. Ultimately streamlining their internal processes and improving their compliance oversight ready for external audits.

“The customer journey from sales to customer success was absolutely fantastic, everything was explained clearly and when additional information was required the response was very quick. The onboarding process has allowed us to enhance our user experience, whilst improving the compliance oversight without the need for manual intervention.”

Acasta Europe Limited concludes that they would not hesitate to recommend SmartSearch to any regulated business looking to digitalise their AML procedures.