On October 22, 2015, the Greater Twin Cities (GTC) Chapter had their first learning event luncheon. The event took place at Wolters Kluwer in downtown Minneapolis with 48 chapter members and nonmembers participating. The GTC Chapter provided lunch and offered three selections of topics to choose from. The three topics were: System Model Validation, How MSBs Work and How to Partner with Them, and Best Practices in the Securities Industry.
Topic Selection Descriptions
- System Model Validation- As per the 2014 FFIEC Manual, financial institutions should have their monitoring system programing methodology and effectiveness “independently validated to ensure that the models are detecting potentially suspicious activity.” This discussion went through some of the expectations and best practices needed to ensure that the monitoring system meets the institution’s needs in mitigating risk.
- Money services businesses (MSBs)- How MSBs work and how best to partner with the MSB to identify suspicious activity.
- Securities- Discussion of best practices based upon feedback from the regulators. Subjects included trading activity, how to get referrals from the trading desks, working together with internal business partners, employee training, identification of unusual/suspicious activity and new trends.
The topics were presented by current board members (Jessica Kelly, Andi Wentworth, Kami Belchak and Shannon Bennett) and past board member Michael Moore. The board members listed led the conversations, and other board members helped facilitate and coordinate the event. Throughout the sessions, board members opened up the dialogue by sharing some best practices and experiences related to the topics. Participants openly shared their struggles and successes and asked others for suggestions based on current practices. Participants shared their enthusiasm during and after the sessions and the consensus was to offer these types of learning events two to three times throughout the year.
