The Risk Assessment tool lets your firm rate each client’s money laundering and terrorism financing risk as Low, Medium or High, and keeps a record of who made the determination and when. The rating is your firm’s determination. Seamlss records it and keeps the evidence trail.
What it covers #
An assessment brings the client’s details, the services your firm provides them, screening results and your firm’s own observations into one record, then holds the rating and the reason behind it. Screening covers politically exposed persons, sanctions, background and adverse media.
It runs as part of onboarding rather than as a separate exercise afterwards, so the record builds as the client comes on board.
Setting it up #
Before your first assessment, your firm records its AML roles, its designated services, its review cycles and its risk settings, so the tool matches your own AML program. Those settings are your firm’s determination, so they need to reflect what your program says.
Step by step guidance for each of those screens is built into the app. Open AML Settings and use the help icon on any screen, and the guidance for that screen appears beside it.
Running an assessment #
Once your settings are recorded, you can start an assessment from any client record. The client is sent the questions they need to answer, the responses come back into the assessment, and your firm completes the determination and records the reason.
Reading screening results #
A screening result is information for your firm to weigh. It is not a decision and it is not a pass or a fail. No match is the expected result for most clients on most checks, and a match is often a different person with the same name.
Adverse media results in particular take some interpretation. Reading adverse media results walks through how to tell your client from a stranger, what actually counts as adverse, and how to write a reason your firm can stand behind.
Where to get help #
The detailed guidance lives in the app, next to the screen you are on. For the wider set of AML tools and the training and reference material, see the AML Compliance Hub.
For background on what the AML obligations mean for your firm, read Tranche 2 for accountants: what onboarding actually looks like, or see plans and pricing.
