Nouvobanq employees complete AML course |15 March 2023

The certificate recipients in a souvenir photograph with management

Twenty-five (25) Nouvobanq employees who have successfully completed an Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Compliance training, received their certificates in a short ceremony at the bank’s main branch, Nouvobanq House, Victoria yesterday afternoon.

The course delivered by ComplioPro X is one among a series to be rolled out by the bank this year.

When addressing the participants, the deputy chief executive, Philippe Pierre, said Nouvobanq places vital importance on core governance functions including compliance and in line with their core objectives to deliver continuous excellent service to its customers, the bank has to maintain a good image, efficiently manage its reputation and uphold a compliance culture to ensure comformity with all the policies, regulatory requirements as well as international standards.

“The AML training, while being engaging, contained fundamental learnings for participants on several aspects of anti-money laundering hence helping to build a compliance discipline in our staff, across our functions and the whole bank,” said Mr Pierre.

He added that the bank will continue to integrate all compliance efforts internally, from the management of external regulations and internal policies to comprehensive employee training.

“By ensuring that all department and staff are working together to achieve and maintain set standards, risks of major failures and violations will therefore be mitigated as well as any risk of the bank being exploited for money laundering, terrorist financing and other financial crimes,” added Mr Pierre.

For her part, the head of compliance at Nouvobanq, Sandra Hall, said the department’s functions were key components to the bank’s second line of defence for managing all related risk.

“Our role is to ensure the bank operates with integrity and that we adhere to all applicable laws, regulations, internal policies and most importantly, industry best practices.”

She urged all the staff to ensure they always do the right thing, by creating an environment that fosters ethical behaviour and decision making.

“Therefore, through the provision of adequate and targeted training, we will strive to further inculcate the culture of compliance within the bank,” said Ms Hall.

The training using a gaming method was led by digital entrepreneur, Malika Jivan. So far, she has designed various training through games for AML, cyber security, leadership, and corporate inductions.

She said although the participants could do the course at their own pace, she could monitor their progress online and assessed them through an online exam. They had to have a 70 percent pass mark and the interactive approach allowed her to alert them when they did not get the right answers.

Among the 25 recipients, five received a token for completing their course in the fastest time and they were Cindy Hoareau, Natacha Camille, Alexina Payet, Sahyva Albesy and Lorean Kunder.

There were also tokens to the five top scorers, namely Vania Elizabeth, Rosianne Pierre, Agnes Quatre, Gretel Adeline and Christian Tirant.

Speaking to the local media, Mr Tirant, who completed the course within a week, described it as fun and interesting.

“We learned a lot about compliance through the gaming method. I have learned how dirty money are introduced into the banks and what are the systems in place to fight against it. What made it fun and interesting was that it was not a classroom setting so it was not boring,” said Mr Tirant.

For Vania Elizabeth, the course addressed all the key components of AML and the new teaching approach “was easy and very interactive, making it easy to learn. I saw the delivery method as very effective”.

Although she started slow, due to other workload, she managed to complete the course within two days.

Nouvobanq said it will hold similar courses for other employees throughout the year where it plans to collaborate with ComplioPro X.

Patsy Canaya

Photo by Louis Toussaint