Egypt’s CIB deploys risk management, anti-money laundering SAS analytics

Egypt Commercial International Bank, the largest private sector bank in Egypt, has collaborated with SAS, to deploy Enterprise Risk Management and Anti Money Laundering. Commercial International Bank’s strategic partnership with SAS emphasizes the bank’s commitment to streamline its risk management processes and adhere to local regulations and global standards with regards to advanced analytical monitoring, reporting and an adequate control framework.

With this achievement, Commercial International Bank continues to be a pioneer of innovative technology and digital transformation, and holds true to its mission of creating shareholder value while paving the future landscape for banking in Egypt and the region. The deployed Enterprise Risk Management solution ensures that the bank is leveraging the leading global techniques and standards in tracking its various risk types, including operational risk, market risk, as well as credit risk, while providing all the needed business intelligence and simulation mechanisms to empower timely and data insight driven decisions.

The world renowned SAS AML solution further strengthens Commercial International Bank’s capabilities for proper identification of unusual transactions and activities and effectively manages its compliance risks with effective, sustainable processes and controls in order to safeguard the bank’s reputation as well as meet regulatory requirements leveraging advanced analytical algorithms and machine learning techniques.

SAS hosted a project completion ceremony to commemorate this remarkable implementation in line with Commercial International Bank’s ERM initiative. Emphasizing on the uniqueness of this particular initiative, SAS recognized the efforts put forth by both the teams to make this project a success and presented Commercial International Bank with its excellence and leadership award. The award was received by Mohamed Sultan, Chief Operating Officer and Hanan El Borollossy, Deputy Chief Risk Officer. Established in 1975, Commercial International Bank is Egypt’s leading private-sector bank.

At the signing, Talha Karim, Head of Risk Management, Risk Group at Commercial International Bank said, “The implementation of the SAS Engine for Credit, Market, and Operational Risk is aligned with Commercial International Bank’s strategic ERM initiative with the objective of a holistic and forward-looking approach to Risk Management, coupled with a robust Risk Appetite and Risk Culture framework.”

Emphasizing on the strong capabilities offered by these solutions, Abla Khairy, Chief Compliance Officer at Commercial International Bank said, “With the deployment of this solution, we believe that the implementation of the SAS AML Engine will guarantee proper management of compliance and apply a risk based approach which will assist to safeguard the bank’s reputation and avoid any adverse actions of non-compliance.”

Abed Hamandi, Regional Director of Professional Services for Middle East and Africa at SAS said, “Building on our longstanding relationship with Commercial International Bank, we have partnered together to ensure the successful implementation of the compliance and Enterprise risk platform to support Commercial International Bank in their overall strategic plans. This has come to execution with the collaboration of both teams and the willingness to change and transform to the best practices in terms of operations and technology. Hence, we are extremely glad to have supported the bank in meeting its compliance objectives and the holistic goals of its ERM initiative with our AML and ERM platforms through SAS Analytical platform and the world class professional services.”

“The overall goal was to help Commercial International Bank to effectively determine and manage the overall level of risk and compliance challenges,” said Alaa Youssef, Managing Director, Middle East at SAS. “Having a thorough understanding of Commercial International Bank’s business environment, and strategic roadmap, SAS is pleased to have enabled the bank to empower their processes with timely data-driven decisions while strengthening the needed capabilities with its ERM and AML platforms to provide the best value to all its stakeholders.”

Key takeaways

Strategy

• CIB’s partnership with SAS streamlines advanced analytical monitoring, reporting, control framework.

Execution

• Enterprise Risk Management solution ensures the bank is leveraging global techniques in tracking risk types.
• SAS AML strengthens proper identification of unusual transactions and activities and manages compliance risks.

People

• SAS presented Commercial International Bank with its excellence and leadership award.