LawWare and GB Group join up to drive down the cost of AML compliance.
LawWare; a leading provider of practice, risk and case management software for the legal sector has today announced the inclusion of GB Group’s URU™ solution, the UK’s most comprehensive national identity verification (eIDV) service, within its Enterprise Edition.
Pressure of the current recession is generating increased competitiveness amongst law firms, with fees being mercilessly driven down. At the same time law firms are at the forefront of regulatory pressure to validate the ID information that they receive from their clients. Consequently, law firms are looking to create business efficiencies to cut costs. There is no doubt that current (usually paper-based) identity-checking procedures are inefficient, insubstantial - and worst of all, time-consuming and firms that operate such systems are subject to far more scrutiny and criticism during compliance audits, requiring even more time and effort.
Optimum use of staff time with improved processes can make a positive difference to internal costs and the integration of URU into LawWare's Enterprise Edition comes in response to clear and unequivocal reports from the legal community that an alternative cost effective solution is urgently needed.
The integration transforms customer ID verification from time consuming processes into the complete paper-less office solution. Solicitors can now perform identity verification and PEPs and sanctions checks all from within their existing practice management software, removing the need for duplicate data entry - all in a couple of online clicks.
URU matches basic client identity information against more data sets than any competing system and offers match rates in excess of 80%. LawWare’s clients using the new service will be provided with a service that is accredited by the original source regulator; the Joint Money Laundering Steering Group (JMLSG). As such, the new service will ensure that the process of confirming an individual’s identity is faster, more robust and far more efficient than traditional, manual checks.
Ryan Morrison, GB’s Head of Channel Management says “In today's legislative environment law firms are looking for sophisticated solutions to seamlessly ID check their clients and a basic, paper based identity check simply isn't enough anymore. Satisfying the requirements of the increasing regulations whilst improving the experience of the client is very difficult and expensive without some form of electronic system. Our partnership with LawWare offers GB Group the opportunity to work with a forward thinking software provider and deliver great value to their clients”.
Warren Wander, LawWare’s Managing Director says “All LawWare’s solutions are designed to meet the requirements of law firms who demand the best in IT-based staff support to help them deliver high-level client care and service. The integration of URU into our software enables our clients to automate their AML checks, helping to reduce the costs associated with extensive paper based processes.
In addition, it helps to ensure our forward thinking clients are protected from the ever increasing and onerous risks associated with meeting their regulatory obligations and, gives them more time to concentrate on their core business - meeting the needs of their clients and improving their service.
GB were selected as LawWare’s integration partner on the basis of their ability to demonstrate a number of distinct advantages over other providers. As well as being able to ensure that our clients can achieve the best possible commercial proposition, GB’s data content and support capability was seen as being of the highest level and their general commitment to relationship management aligned with LawWare’s culture of doing our best to go the extra mile whenever we can. All of this has lead to a very successful project.”
November 2009