Muinmos

REMONDA Z. KIRKETERP-MØLLER

Founder and CEO of Muinmos

Q Can you give the readers an outline of your extensive background?

I am a qualified solicitor and RegTech entrepreneur, with a specialism in regulatory matters in financial services. I am also the Founder and CEO of RegTech firm, Muinmos Aps which is headquartered in Denmark. My focus for the last nine years has been on revolutionising regulatory compliance and client onboarding in the financial services sector, using sophisticated technology to automate highly complex and regulatory processes.

Prior to setting up Muinmos, I worked in the retail FX sector for many years. I was a co-founder of CFH (now Finalto) and spent over a decade in senior executive positions at Saxo Bank and CFH where I gained first-hand experience about the complexities involved in compliance and client onboarding across multiple jurisdictions.

RegTech is a real passion of mine – I was involved in the sector before RegTech was even a recognised term and, as such, I am a regular speaker and expert advisor on regulatory matters in financial services and am also a contributing author of ‘The RegTech Book.’

Q Outside of the two big FX brands in your country, is there a healthy FX ecosystem?

There’s a lot of innovation in Denmark and it’s a great place for business. However, like all the big FX brands here, we are operating in a global space and so our location is not a key factor. The ecosystem is basically global nowadays. What’s most important to us is that we understand our market and can provide clients with world-class solutions. For Muinmos, this means providing financial institutions across the globe with technology to enable them to onboard clients quickly and remain compliant across multiple jurisdictions.

Q To the uniformed like myself, what is RegTech?

Regulation Technology is the market’s, the financial institutions’, the investors’ and regulators’ ‘best friend.’ Take, for example, online trading. After 2008, authorities realised we have to protect investors in order to prevent the crashing of the whole financial system, and thus protect financial institutions themselves. Authorities also realised years ago the financial institutions themselves are being used by money launderers and terror organisations so they set a long list of rules that financial institutions need to adhere to. The result of these two sets of laws, and others like them, is a marketplace that is, presumably, safer for the investors and the financial institutions.

However, this heavy regulation has its price: in Europe, according to EU research, MiFID II related compliance alone costs financial institutions about 2-3% of their total revenue.

This can cause financial institutions to raise their rates, which is bad for investors, the financial institutions and the market as a whole; or not to comply fully with regulation, which again exposes both the individual investor, the market players and the market itself to risks.

Enter RegTech – and a platform like ours, for example, which automates compliance processes, significantly cutting their costs. Our client onboarding platform takes care of client categorisation, suitability and appropriateness, all KYC/AML checks, risk assessments, client lifecycle monitoring – all instantly and automated. Think how dramatically this lowers costs, and enhances compliance.

Now financial institutions no longer have the incentive not to comply (making both investors and regulators happy); they pay a lot less for compliance, so they can offer more competitive prices; they’re protected from fines, lawsuits etc.; and they’re also protected from crimes aimed at THEM, like fraud.

So what is RegTech? RegTech is technology that ensures more transparency, more lawfulness, and therefore simply makes the world a safer place.

Q I have been reading more in the media about fines given out by regulators, which from my very basic understanding could have been avoided if they had some form of RegTech. Why are firms still not making this a fundamental part of their business?

I think most financial institutions are using RegTech solutions, to some extent. Maybe not comprehensive RegTech solutions like ours – a lot of financial institutions still have manual or decentralised onboarding processes – but certainly some form of

RegTech. Otherwise they wouldn’t survive. Imagine a financial institution that onboards clients manually. It’ll take hours at best, weeks at worst. Clients won’t wait that long – this is an online world we’re speaking of – they’ll go to someone who has a straight-through-process (STP).

The problem is financial institutions are adopting RegTech solutions that aren’t sufficient. They take care of one part of the chain, but neglect the others. And it’s in those “weak links” that the mistakes happen.

I always say, computers don’t make mistakes. They’re fast, they’re very good at repetitive tasks, and they don’t make mistakes. So let them do that, and let your compliance officers do what they are good at – using their judgement. Let them focus on the high-end side of the tasks.

A lot of compliance people are afraid if they take our solution they’ll lose their jobs. But I have never seen that happen. Financial institutions that have adopted our solution haven’t decreased their manpower, they have simply increased their onboarding numbers. They have been able to extract and pull all relevant data sets within minutes, enabling the compliance team to make informed decisions, and freeing up their time to do less administrative compliance work.

Another reason preventing financial institutions from adapting RegTech solutions is that some of them are tied to legacy systems which they have already invested heavily in or they have very complex and time consuming procurement and integration processes, making it harder to acquire new solutions. These have been long-standing barriers but as the fines become more frequent and the benefits of RegTech solutions become more widely acknowledged, we are seeing these barriers slowly being removed.

Q Why did you start Muinmos?

I started Muinmos because I love solving puzzles. I saw, first hand, how the field of client onboarding and CLM was becoming a regulatory minefield. Online trading platforms from all over the world were onboarding clients from all over the world – this is an international legal maze. And it was a puzzle that was getting increasingly difficult to solve. The first thing I did was to draft, on a paper napkin, an algorithm to solve that puzzle. That’s how our regulatory compliance engine was born. We call it mPASS™, it’s an AI powered engine that provides the financial institution with all relevant regulatory clearances to secure them against mis-selling.

After that I realised, that I couldn’t leave it at that – the client onboarding process has another puzzle, the KYC/AML puzzle. So we created another software solution, called mCHECK™, which performs all types of KYC/AML checks like PEPs, sanctions, adverse media, ID verification, proof of address, beneficial ownership, company checks etc. instantly and connected to many data sources.

And then there was another puzzle to solve – the risk. We pulled all the information from solving the previous two puzzles into a third puzzle-solver, which we call mRX™. This combines and analyses all relevant risk attributes and provides the financial institution instantly with data on what’s the risk of onboarding the client.

It wasn’t easy to build this giant puzzle-solver called Muinmos, but luckily some of the most talented technologists in our industry have chosen to work at Muinmos. We have an amazing, highly experienced and highly motivated team and have grown an impressive global client base.

Q To the uninitiated, what makes good RegTech software?

For me, there are four key things. Firstly, it needs to significantly enhance at least one aspect of the compliance process. Secondly, it needs to be cloud-based, and easy to install and integrate with existing technologies. Thirdly, it needs to be simple to configure, so that it can be easily adapted and updated as regulatory parameters change. And finally, it needs to be easy and intuitive to use.

Q What makes yours different?

I think in our niche, which is client onboarding platforms for financial institutions, you can generally find two kinds of solutions:

a. A solution that solves a piece of the puzzle for any financial institution, like a data-provider that can help you stay compliant with AML requirements or a configurable risk management tool;

b. A comprehensive solution which solves all of the puzzle or at least a large part of it, for a certain financial institution to which it was specifically tailored. What these solutions usually do is take a certain financial institution’s workflow or checklist, and code it into a computerised workflow or checklist. It’s not exactly automation – more like creating a computerised work environment, which is still often a good step forward from the manual work that preceded it, but of course it doesn’t challenge the status quo and doesn’t address if there are issues with the original work-flow.

Muinmos’ client onboarding platform solves all of the puzzler for any financial institution. It performs, instantly and automatically, all aspects of the client onboarding process; and it can be bought and integrated by any financial institution within a week or a couple of weeks. It’s a game changer; we are a complete STP solution.

Our products cover the following key areas:

• Investor protection – making sure the investor is correctly categorised and the products and services offered to them are suitable and appropriate for them. • Society Protection – making sure the financial institution isn’t used for criminal purposes such as money laundering or financing of terror • Financial institution protection – client risk assessments.

Q Once the salesperson has dazzled me with the software, how easy is it to use for the potential new client?

Very. After all, “easy to use” is the whole idea of the platform. The whole idea is to make a process which is extremely complex, both regulatorily and administratively, and make it simple and easy. We automate a large part of the process, so that part is easy; and we present the outcomes of the automated process in a traffic-light display, with comments and annotations, making all the data available and accessible to the compliance officer. It’s very user-friendly and it usually takes no more than one or two training sessions for our clients to start using the platform.

Q Who in an organisation should be looking at your product or reg tech in general?

That’s a very good question. Because our offering covers the entire onboarding process as well as CLM, the relevant functions in a financial institution are the

onboarding teams, compliance, legal, risk, sales, IT, marketing and, of course, management. Our platform brings value to each of those functions, so we get approached by all of them. A lot of times we demo the platform to one team that approaches us and they ask to hold a second demo with members of other teams; this sometimes leads on to meetings with additional teams too.… which is no surprise as this platform is relevant to so many functions within an organisation. It’s not like anything they will have seen before.

Q With a large percentage of FX brands being offshore, should they also look at RegTech software as well?

Absolutely, for three reasons.

The first being that any of the offshore regulators are aligning their regulatory framework to fit the rest of the world to protect investors from being mis-sold financial products that are not appropriate for them. They have introduced stringent procedures for financial institutions to demonstrate clear compliance at the onboarding stage in order to fight against money laundering, financing of terrorism, corruption and so on.

We are seeing a surge in fines from offshores - so absolutely the need for RegTech solutions to assist them to comply is a must. Many of the offshore regulators are, in fact, looking for RegTech solutions to help them amend some of the regulators’ frameworks that are, to a large extent, outdated in today’s digital world.

The second reason offshore FX brokers look at RegTech software is that it improves the customer’s onboarding experience – and that is very important in a competitive market like the FX market.

The third reason offshore FX brokers should look at RegTech software is to protect themselves against financial crime or fraud aimed at them. An FX broker needs to know who they’re trading with, regardless of any regulators or possible fines.

Q What advice would you give to any up and coming entrepreneurs?

I would say if you truly have a dream and an urge to fix something through an innovative mind set - go ahead and don’t look back. The journey is incredibly tough, it tests you every day and don’t think you can sleep peacefully once you have made the decision to start your business – you can’t! But the reward of building something from total scratch and seeing it grow into a global company is incredibly rewarding.

I have loved every day of the Muinmos journey - from the first day of walking into an empty office all alone

Remonda Z. Kirketerp-Møller Founder and CEO of Muinmos

with nothing but a dream to seeing it reach our current stage of growth is truly amazing. I am proud of what we have achieved, I’m incredibly proud of my team and without them, Muinmos would not be where it is today. However, it would be wrong to say this journey is for everyone. It really takes a lot of sacrifice, sleepless nights and an incredible level of dedication and belief in the journey to make it truly happen.

So if you’re someone who likes to be in a comfort zone, steady job and pay, free weekends, peaceful sleep, no responsibility for anyone or anything, this is really not your journey. A successful employee doesn’t have to be an entrepreneur, but successful entrepreneurs need to have employees that thrive in a dynamic environment.

Q What’s the best way to get a look at how Muinmos can benefit their brand?

We would love the chance to demonstrate our regulatory onboarding platform or any of our individual modules to anyone who is interested in finding out more.

Please contact info@muinmos.com for more information.