The sheer volume of content out there has sadly diminished its reputation, and made woolly a highly important concept for spearheading insight that drastically flips the way a sector functions. When it comes to the misunderstood world of compliance, we need to champion thought leaders willing to challenge the status quo. To drive an impactful AML compliance culture the trick lies in emphasising the realistic impact of financial crime and the utterly crucial role the financial ecosystem has to protect the livelihoods of customers and beyond. C-level executives – from governments, institutions and technology platforms need to be a vocal vanguard to provoke actionable solutions, beyond the reductive idea of an influencer chasing views.
This may have been a pointed, bold view that stirred some discourse, but it did so because people do care. The real human cost of financial crime is horrific; considered thought leadership can remind us that’s the case, and prove that we need to care enough to make our anti-fincrime defence as powerful as it should be.
Bradley Elliott, CEO RelyComply
The “Adoption, Amplification, Action” principle
When it comes to the misunderstood world of compliance, we need to champion thought leaders willing to challenge the status quo. In emphasising the realistic impact of financial crime and the utterly crucial role the financial ecosystem has to protect the livelihoods of customers and beyond, C-level executives from governments, institutions and technology platforms need to be a vocal vanguard to provoke actionable solutions, beyond the reductive idea of an influencer chasing views. These three simple principles will help you instil an impactful AML compliance culture in your business.
Adoption: planting ideas that take root
It’s easy to throw out passing remarks that stick with some audiences and not others. But a purposeful concept or recommendation will be one that’s heeded elsewhere to solve pain points. This showcases adoption where leaders go above and beyond, delivering astute and well-articulated ideas that resonate so greatly with someone that they assimilate the original approach independently to create measurable results.
Using the RegTech industry as an example, it’s not enough to state the obvious that “automation is important” – automated technologies are too nuanced for that catch-all. Instead, explaining how a global bank with stretched budgets can automate high-risk payment checks to reduce their risk exposure is an actionable view for their stakeholders to adopt.
Tips for driving adoption
Keep principles grounded. The foundation for appealing to audiences is understanding them thoroughly: their hurdles, and how your expertise can be tailored to their lifestyle or livelihood. Telling relevant ‘stories’ that they can see themselves in is helpful to apply fresh (or tricky) concepts to the day-to-day.
Avoid blanket statements. When addressing customers or industry leaders, frame ideas around specific contexts that apply to them, e.g. a small crypto exchange will face different regulatory pressures than an insurance giant.
Be practical, not theoretical. Other thought leaders will adopt ideas that are immediately attributable to their world; small-scale solutions target niche uses best, like eKYC for customer onboarding, or building effective risk assessment frameworks.
Amplification: being present in the right circles
Getting the correct ‘reach’ for your musings is not a numbers game. By operating as a thought leader in a club of expertise, influencing those community members creates actual change. Distinct approaches will relate to them in a different way than any social account follower, and they will be more likely to boost the amplification ofyour discussion points within their own forums and extended networks.
They essentially become an advocate to grow your own kudos in the work arena. For instance, you may be quoted by a regulator in a conference panel discussion regarding your point on human-in-the-loop governance; a clear indicator that your message is hitting the right eyes and ears.
Tips for driving amplification
Be credible. Pieces that are backed by deep knowledge or research means that your expertise is further solidified when shared.
Be straightforward. Getting complexity across (particularly in AML) involves making concepts relatable and easy to grasp, in turn being simpler for others to re-promote in their own words.
Build relationships. Being personable with regulatory champions and industry peers is as important as visibility, where the ecosystem backs and builds upon each others’ incisive comments. Community groups on social media platforms can be as powerful as media coverage through PR or industry publications for sharing, if you know where to look, the effect being a unified group of thought leaders driving for change.
Action: spurring meaningful next steps
That leads to the ultimate test: where your ideas prompt concrete behaviours and executive decisions that improve an outcome. When the results are tangible – perhaps presented back to you in a success story or a simple acknowledgement – that’s validation enough that your influence is being utilised accordingly.
Either in the ‘digital wild’ or in private communications, you may gain engagement with a financial compliance leader that decided to tighten their monitoring capabilities following your shared insight on increased risks – one small step leading to action that has genuine positive effect.
Tips for driving action
Attach ideas to ‘doable’ things. Perspectives should always be demonstrated with proven real outcomes in mind. One way can be instructional ‘how tos’, such as “ways to reduce KYC friction” or “how doing this reduces false positives for investigations”.
Do not think wholesale! Even encouraging a single person to alter their approach is revolutionary: the smallest utterance can carry the largest call for change.
Value individual impact. Building a lasting relationship with a decision-maker or institution is brilliant to collectively progress the industry.
A call for more conversation
Being a leader means shining a torch on the industry in which you operate, and following this three-point framework can help fundamentally shift audience perspectives on real-world issues. It’s all for the benefit of operational ease on one hand, but also to positively impact wider culture – something that compliance screams out for with its crucial role in maintaining our system’s integrity.
We should all be on the mission to converse, collaborate, experiment, better our digital means, and increase our collective wealth of knowledge against those looking to exploit the world – turning talk into community-driven action that makes for a better, safer world brick by brick.
