Credit Agricole Chooses Norkom to Combat Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing

19 July 2006

As part of its strategy to fight money laundering and terrorism financing, Credit Agricole is to introduce financial crime and compliance software from Norkom Technologies, to ensure compliance with existing and future legislation and regulations.

The French group, which is one of the world's largest banks, will deploy Norkom's software across all of its retail banking operations in France. Through a network of 41 Caisses Regionales and LCL (Credit Lyonnais), it serves 23 million customers.

Norkom's anti-money laundering and watch list management software will be used to monitor banking transactions to detect suspicious and criminal behavior using sophisticated behavioral profiling, link analysis and case management technology. The software will be implemented in several phases over the next 18 months.

When unusual activity is identified, prioritized alerts will automatically be issued to a team of investigators to begin a comprehensive, step-by-step investigation process. The Norkom software will also monitor transactions against various 'watch lists' to immediately identify high-risk individuals, organizations or countries and prioritize investigations to focus attention on the greatest threats.

In addition to enabling faster and more accurate identification of fraudulent customer activity, Norkom's software will also deliver substantial efficiency savings by streamlining the bank's existing compliance and financial crime management systems and procedures.

Paul Kerley, CEO of Norkom Technologies said: "This is a very significant contract which underlines our strong position in the market. We were able to demonstrate our strong track record in implementing highly effective financial crime and compliance solutions with many other major international banking groups who were happy to provide references supporting our capabilities and expertise. We are confident we can work in close partnership with Credit Agricole to meet their requirements and deliver a tangible return on investment."

Kerley, also explained that further benefits may be realized as Credit Agricole extends its financial crime strategy in future: "As each Norkom product is built upon a fully scaleable technology platform, it can operate as a stand alone solution or as part of a fully integrated financial crime and compliance software suite to counter all types of fraud.

"This means that our technology can be scaled to meet the future requirements of our clients' ongoing financial crime and compliance strategy on an international basis for its global operations and across all of its business lines and products."

The contract with Credit Agricole builds on Norkom Technologies existing client base in over 100 countries, which includes leading global financial services organizations such as Bank of Montreal Financial Group, HSBC, Harris Bank, KBC Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, Rabobank, Erste Bank Group, Travelex and Natexis Banques Populaires.

Notes:

Norkom Technologies is a leading provider of financial crime solutions to the global financial services industry. Its solutions enable organizations to detect and combat financial crime, reducing their operational losses, and addressing the industry's ever-changing compliance and regulatory requirements. Norkom provides a portfolio of financial crime solutions, which include products for Anti-Money Laundering (AML), Watch List Management, Card Fraud, Identity Theft, Check Fraud and Internal Fraud.

Founded in 1998, Norkom has operations across North America and Europe. Clients include, Standard Chartered Bank, Erste Bank Group, Travelex, the New York Clearing House, HSBC Bank, Bank of Montreal Financial Group, Allied Irish Bank, Fortis Bank, KBC Bank, National Australia Bank Group, Rabobank, and other global financial institutions and organizations.

For further information please visit http://www.norkom.com

Source: prnewswire

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