Case Study 2025

AML Monitoring and Data Processing Platform

Building & Operating a Scalable Compliance Platform for International Banks

70 Mio. Transactions/Day
6h Processing Time
16 Mon. Data History
01

Context & Regulatory Framework

The project addressed the constantly growing regulatory expectations for an effective AFC/AML control system with functional transaction monitoring, robust CDD/KYC processes, traceable audit trails, and documented internal security measures.

Risk-Based Monitoring

Transaction monitoring incorporating machine learning and rule-based scenarios for maximum detection accuracy.

Data Quality & Validation

Data quality and model validation as foundational pillars for effective controls with automated quality assurance processes.

Complete Documentation

Complete documentation of all requirements, thresholds, parameterizations, and changes for audit compliance.

Against this background, the task was to introduce a new AML transaction monitoring system (NICE Actimize) while simultaneously building a scalable big data infrastructure that meets these requirements sustainably and performantly.

02

Project Deliverables & Implementation

1

Requirements Management & DRS Creation

Development and maintenance of a Data Requirements Sheet (DRS) as central reference for functional, regulatory, and technical requirements. Consolidation of KYC/CDD requirements, TM scenarios & thresholds, data quality KPIs, audit trail specifications, and visualization/drill-down functions.

Iterative workshops with Compliance, Analytics, IT
2

Big Data Architecture & Cloud Optimization

Building a high-performance data pipeline on GCP (BigQuery, Hadoop, SparkSQL, BigSQL). Daily processing of >70 million transactions with 13 + 3 months history within 6 hours.

Google Cloud Platform optimized AVRO & JSON in GCS buckets
3

Data Quality Management (DQM)

Automated quality assurance with data completeness, integrity, referential checks, and special processing. Monitoring & alerting with Google Cloud tools. On-demand special exports to bridge infrastructure issues.

Automated quality assurance
4

Operations, Support & Enablement

Operational management of the data pipeline with continuous performance optimization. Support for analytics teams and assistance with parameterization of Actimize rules to reduce false positives. Training of internal staff in cloud technologies.

Successful know-how transfer
03

Technologies & Methods

Big Data & Cloud

GCP BigQuery, Google Cloud Storage (AVRO, JSON), SparkSQL, BigSQL, Hadoop for high-performance data processing in the petabyte range.

Databases & SQL

PL/SQL, T-SQL, Oracle, MS SQL Server for complex data integration and transformation across various systems.

Compliance & Monitoring

NICE Actimize SAM, STAR, AML/CDD/KYC frameworks for comprehensive money laundering prevention and regulatory compliance.

BI & Tools

Looker, Aqua Data Studio, SQL Developer, Jira, HPQC for visualization, development, and project management.

04

Challenges & Solutions

Challenge

Large data volumes (70M TXN/day) with short loading time

SIMO Solution

BigQuery performance optimization, parallel loading processes, bucket strategy with AVRO/JSON

Challenge

Different stakeholder requirements

SIMO Solution

Central DRS, prioritization, prototype dashboards

Challenge

False positives in AML monitoring

SIMO Solution

Actimize parameterization, ML optimizations

Challenge

Customer training needs

SIMO Solution

Workshop series & on-the-job training

05

Customer Feedback

For data protection and confidentiality reasons, we do not name our clients, as the trust of our customers is particularly important to us as SIMO GmbH.

SIMO GmbH has revolutionized our AML transaction monitoring. The implementation of the new system reduced our false-positive rate by 78% and significantly increased the efficiency of our compliance department. Particularly impressive was the seamless migration of 50 million historical transaction records without any data loss.
Chief Compliance Officer International Major Bank
Exceptional technical expertise and professionalism! SIMO's deep learning algorithms for money laundering detection significantly outperform our previous systems. Real-time monitoring of 2.3 million daily transactions has been running absolutely reliably since implementation. We are very grateful for this outstanding collaboration.
Head of Financial Crime Prevention Leading Private Bank
SIMO's expertise in regulatory compliance is unmatched. The new Transaction Monitoring System not only meets all current BaFin requirements but is also future-proofed for upcoming EU regulations. The implementation time of just 6 weeks was remarkably short.
Head of Compliance International Major Bank
Highest recognition for the tailor-made AML solution! The intelligent pattern recognition identifies suspicious transaction flows with a precision of 94.7%. Our reports to the FIU could be qualitatively improved by 60%. SIMO has exceeded our expectations in every respect.
Senior Risk Manager Private Bank

Results & Added Value

16 months of data history for AML monitoring provided in 6 hours
Significant reduction in false positives
High-performance, scalable data architecture on GCP
Complete regulatory compliance
Sustainable know-how transfer

SIMO GmbH has successfully demonstrated its capabilities in business, analytics, data integration, and compliance projects. Through the combination of technical expertise, regulatory know-how, and agile methods, a future-proof AML platform was created that meets the highest regulatory requirements.

SIMO Team Roles in the Project

Data Management Team Lead Data Manager Data Scientist Data Quality Manager Project Manager Product Owner

Need an AML/Compliance Solution?

Let's master your compliance challenges together and implement a future-proof solution.