Portman Building Society takes positive action against money laundering in partnership with STB

Portman Building Society takes positive action against money laundering in partnership with STB Major UK Building Society takes a lead to strengthen anti-Money Laundering controls Leading Compliance software specialist aiding the fight against money launderers

London, England -- STB Systems, a world leader in regulatory and compliance software, has signed an agreement to implement its anti-Money Laundering solution, STB-Detector, at Portman Building Society.

Portman Building Society will complete the implementation of STB-Detector within the next few months to analyse all daily account movements for suspicious activity. The system will build a history of individual account activities against which it will compare what is happening on those accounts today. As well as spotting anything unusual within an account, the system will identify unusual activity across peer groups of similar accounts, providing Portman with an automatic analysis of everything the system considers suspicious. The whole process is then managed by the society as a part of its integrated anti-money laundering procedures.

Andrew Jones, Group Secretary, Portman Building Society, says It is all too easy for terrorists or criminals to take over the identity of a trusted customer. By implementing STBs technology, we will significantly improve the level of transaction checking that we perform. This will help us to spot trends or changes in usual behaviour in a way that cannot be achieved purely through manual processes. No-one can afford to be complacent in these difficult times, especially with the Proceeds of Crime Act now in place, and we believe that the Portman is setting a standard that others will follow".

Commenting on the agreement, Michael Thomas, Group CEO, STB Systems, said, We are delighted that Portman Building Society has selected STB-Detector, the first building society to do so. The flexibility of STBs rules based solution makes it an ideal choice across the entire financial sector, not just one niche. As a compliance specialist, STB is able to cover all of the key control issues a financial institution faces in a single implementation. These are key areas of focus that need to be addressed globally if we are to have a real impact on the movement of terrorist and drug money. We look forward to a long and mutually beneficial relationship with Portman Building Society".

About Portman Building Society
The Portman can trace its roots back to 1846, making it the third oldest building society in the UK.

Originally established in Ramsbury, Wiltshire and named the Provident Union Building Society, the current name dates back to 1881 when the Portman Chapel Temperance Permanent Benefit Building Society was founded.

In the last 20 years a number of mergers have taken place bringing together strong regional societies. Most significant of these was the joining together of the Regency & West of England Building Society and Portman Wessex Building Society, in 1990, to form the Portman Building Society that exists today.

Today the Portman is the largest regional building society in the south of England with assets exceeding 10billion.

About STB Systems
STB is one of the world's leading vendors of automated compliance reporting solutions for the financial markets. Founded in 1984, STB is the market leader with offices in London, New York, Hong Kong and Singapore.
STB's solutions are designed to automate the presentation of critical controls that protect banking businesses, handling both internal and external reporting to satisfy relevant regulatory bodies. The company is one of just five approved by the Bank of England for electronic reporting.
STB's solutions control and consolidate multiple data sources. The use of rules-based technology ensures a stable product, and allows for development of new solutions quickly and efficiently to meet the constantly changing demands of regulatory, management, risk and other compliance reporting.

STB's core competence has led to new products for its customers, including the development of an anti-money laundering system. www.stbsystems.com

Press contacts

Andrew Jones
Portman Building Society
01202 563600
andrew.jones@portman.co.uk

Ray Jones
Media Link
+44 118 984 3386
Ray@medialink.co.uk

James Phillips
STB Systems Limited
+44 20 7403 2188
James.Phillips@stbsystems.com