Irish regtech Fenergo acquires AML transaction monitoring firm Sentinels

Irish regtech Fenergo has acquired AI-powered anti-money laundering (AML) firm Sentinels for an undisclosed sum.

Fenergo acquires Sentinels

The deal is set to bolster Fenergo’s end-to-end Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) client lifecycle management platform, providing smart transaction monitoring to compliment the firm’s existing know your customer (KYC) solutions.

Fenergo CEO Marc Murphy says: “By adding transaction compliance to our existing client onboarding and product origination solutions, financial institutions can monitor and review client behaviour and identify risks on an ongoing basis.”

This “blended approach to financial crime”, Murphy says, positions the firm to effectively tackle rising criminal activity, evolving regulations and sanctions, operational inefficiencies and increased regulatory scrutiny.

As a result of the acquisiton, Fenergo’s clients and financial institutions will be able to combine KYC profiles with client behavioural data for continuous and granular KYC monitoring, detecting and eliminating criminal transactions fast and at scale.

The company adds the deal will also allow Sentinels to scale rapidly, increase its global footprint and serve larger financial institutions.

Sentinels CEO Joost van Houten says with compliance costs surging and increasingly sophisticated criminal activity, “it is imperative for financial institutions to break through data siloes and start assessing client risk holistically across KYC and transaction monitoring”.