Hamburg Commercial Bank presented a genuine success story at the “RegTech Day” event run by leading software provider Actico. One thing was absolutely clear: Compliance is not a legal obligation but a central strategic component for the success of the digital transformation in banks.
Hamburg Commercial Bank has undergone a more than successful three-year transformation. The “change” was crowned with strong figures as of the balance sheet date of December 31, 2021, and inclusion in the voluntary Deposit Protection Fund of the Association of German Banks on New Year’s Day this year. The three Compliance teams also play a key role in the Bank’s success: Corporate & Securities Compliance, Anti Financial Crime, and Information Security & Sourcing Management. “Compliance is becoming more and more of a focus, especially in banks,” says Mashal Bösch, Head of Compliance at Hamburg Commercial Bank.
Compliance IT: Many small islands became one big platform
However, the basis for successful work is a state-of-the-art, fast, and resilient IT system. In the past, though, there was a need for improvement in this area at HCOB. “Our Compliance IT system previously consisted of a very heterogeneous, complex, and costly IT landscape with many isolated solutions,” says Dr. Michael Sendker, Project Manager from the Bank's Compliance team. The noticeable consequences were a low level of integration and a high level of manual work in reporting.
But this is now a thing of the past. At the “ACTICO RegTech Days 2022” in Frankfurt am Main Michael Sendker reported on the successful transformation of the Compliance IT landscape at Hamburg Commercial Bank. For this process, they relied on – and continue to rely on – solutions from Actico. The company from Immenstaad on Lake Constance is a leading international provider of software for intelligent automation and digital decision-making, especially for banks and insurance companies. Actico provides best-in-class software and tools that improve daily decision-making and end-to-end automation. Actico’s solutions are used to manage risk, meet regulatory compliance obligations, prevent fraud, improve digital customer loyalty, and optimize operations. They combine human knowledge and artificial intelligence with powerful automation technology. All of these advantages, together with the strong technical support in Germany, more than convinced the Compliance team at Hamburg Commercial Bank. Two project managers on the Bank side and two consultants from Actico implemented the project in collaboration with the compliance team at the Bank. Now the digital future can really get started.