Fenergo and BMO Continue Compliance Partnership

In June, BMO chose Fenergo to manage its compliance with the US's Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (Fatca). Marc Murphy, Fenergo's Dublin-based CEO, says that the firms successfully implemented phase one, which went live on July 1 ─ the day that Fatca came into force. This involved implementing the workflows and rules for all new client requests, and phase two will extend that to comply with regulations such as the Dodd-Frank Act, the European Market Infrastructure Regulation and the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, adds Murphy. Phase two will also add operational efficiencies to the end-to-end account opening process.

"When a client comes in to open a new account with the bank, whether it's a new relationship or an existing relationship, it will go through the process of onboarding the data, getting the new approvals marked and complete and then it will be passed in to the new accounts team, who will employ what we called ‘swivel-chair integration'; that is, they turn their chairs to another keyboard and create the account manually on downstream systems like Wall Street [Systems], Calypso or Murex," he explains. "The solution uses straight-through processing, allows for these accounts to be created automatically in those downstream systems, so it adds huge operational efficiency to the bank."

He says that BMO chose Fenergo's solution because of the power of its integrated approach.

"There's a clear intersection between managing entity or client data, managing the regulatory rules and then managing the workflow that governs and provides stewardship for the data and the regulators through the journey. So when those three points collide ─ data, rules, workflow ─ Fenergo's positioning in the context of client lifecycle, that's where the rubber hits the road, as we say.

"The key aspects are the role that an entity is performing, the account that is being managed and then the ownership structure between that, which create a very complex legal entity data structure that Fenergo is managing for the Bank of Montreal," he continues.