Compliance goes digital at Hamburg Commercial Bank, powered by ACTICO

Hamburg/Immenstaad, November 08, 2022 – When Hamburg Commercial Bank embarked on a digital transformation, a key part of the project involved harmonizing and centralizing its compliance processes. Over three years, the bank – formerly HSH Nordbank – replaced cost-intensive isolated solutions with Compliance Suite software from ACTICO, which now serves as the single source of truth. The upshot is that HCOB now relies on a modular and standardized IT landscape, while also reaping the benefit of scaling potential for further machine learning applications.

 

Compliance IT: An archipelago of IT islands transformed to a single major platform

Given an IT landscape encompassing numerous software solutions used to screen for embargoes/sanctions, monitor and score clients, monitor ex-post transactions, protect capital markets and manage conflicts of interest, managing the interfaces required abundant communication and coordination resources. The software solutions came from different providers with different data models. What HCOB sought was therefore a software platform to integrate roots and branch and cover all existing and future compliance requirements via a single provider. Customizing was deliberately minimised – the greater the degree of standardization, the more scalable the IT system would be going forward. Dr. Michael Sendker, Head of the Compliance Digitization Project, explains: “We deliberately kept to the standard as closely as possible to get a solution up and running quickly. Right out of the box, the numerous configuration parameters included in the ACTICO Compliance Suite allow us to implement new requirements faster and eliminate the need for extensive customization.”

 

From the Provider Longlist to Going Live: It was foot-to-the-floor

It took only 20 months from finalising the catalogue of requirements to going live and everything remained on time and on budget. For Dr. Michael Sendker, the commitment of the ACTICO team is what stood out: “It’s not every day that we get such great cooperation with software providers. Our contacts supported us throughout with reliable expertise and their integrity and hands-on mentality are what really made an impression.”
And he reiterates: “We have now created the high-quality database needed to train the AI in pattern recognition. The ACTICO system has accelerated and facilitated our daily work tremendously. We’ve done away with a lot of the manual slog thanks to the machine learning functions.”
HCOB is counting on even further efficiency gains when machine learning modules are rolled out to other areas.

 

Mashal Bösch, Head of Compliance and Dr. Michael Sendker, Head of the Compliance Digitisation Project at Hamburg Commercial Bank.

 

About Hamburg Commercial Bank (HCOB)

Hamburg Commercial Bank (HCOB) came into being when Landesbank HSH Nordbank was privatised in 2019. With 900 employees and EUR 30 billion on the balance sheet, it focuses on financing projects in real estate, shipping, infrastructure and energy supply sectors. In January 2022, HCOB was admitted to the voluntary Deposit Protection Fund of the Association of German Banks (BdB). And three of its departments oversee compliance, namely: Corporate & Securities Compliance, Anti Financial Crime and Information Security & Sourcing Management.