Penguin Securities is a regulated, Singapore-based financial services provider, holding a Capital Markets Services license and providing services in dealing in securities, structured products, and derivatives. Penguin Securities has applied for regulatory approval for a Major Payment Institution license to provide digital payment token services in Singapore. Leveraging its deep knowledge of capital markets, Penguin Securities offers best-in-class investment solutions tailored to the growing needs of accredited and institutional investors.
- Location: Singapore
- Company size: Less than 50 employees
- Industry: Fintech / Investments
The business case
As a relatively new entrant in the market, Penguin Securities operates with the agility of a startup, whose goal is to innovate traditional onboarding and know your customer (KYC) processes. Its compliance processes should be proactive, adaptable, and aligned with evolving regulatory requirements.
The team was looking to automate common, manual KYC tasks to prioritize and allocate resources more efficiently and speed up the customer onboarding process. At the same time, Penguin Securities was working towards a digital onboarding journey and needed a solution that could serve this purpose.
The challenge
Penguin Securities wanted to improve the efficiency of its KYC and due diligence processes when onboarding new customers. To achieve that, Penguin Securities needed a customer lifecycle management (CLM) solution that was compatible with third-party data providers and internal core systems. This would provide flexibility in integrating the solution with existing systems and workflows with minimal disruption.
The onboarding solution’s success is measured by its ease of integration with Penguin Securities’ existing third-party tools and core systems and its ability to deliver improved customer experiences through faster onboarding.
The solution
Using built-in integrations on Moody’s unified risk management platform for CLM, Maxsight™, Penguin Securities integrated some of the 25+ global data providers to run its compliance and data checks for onboarding and ongoing monitoring.
In addition, with Moody’s APIs, Penguin Securities could integrate Moody’s data and insights seamlessly into its internal core systems and tools. These integrations supported Penguin Securities to conduct automated sanctions screening, document compliance reviews, and integrate approval workflows as part of anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/ CTF) measures automatically at onboarding. They also contributed to improved operational efficiency for a leaner compliance team.
Moody’s and Penguin Securities orchestrated specially built digital onboarding workflows aligned with the business’s risk policies and framework. With Penguin Securities’ input, Moody’s tailored the platform’s risk engine with defined risk thresholds, jurisdictions, customer types, profiles, and workflows, supporting Penguin Securities to automate risk calculation and assessment. This level of customization helped deliver a customer onboarding process that follows Penguin Securities’ corporate governance standards and risk appetite.
Penguin Securities says…
The outcome
70-80% reduction in onboarding time
The Moody’s implementation team worked closely with Penguin Securities to deliver the solution in less than three months. With Maxsight™, Penguin Securities successfully transitioned its customer onboarding process into a digital one and reduced time to completion.
By automating identity verification and screening on the platform, Penguin Securities reduced onboarding time by up to 70-80%.
In its early days, the Penguin Securities team was leveraging manual processes and forms for onboarding. Using the Maxsight™ platform for CLM has sped up the team’s digitization effort, helping Penguin Securities to capture and store customer information digitally as part of a holistic onboarding workflow. The ability of Penguin Securities to integrate risk assessments on the CLM platform – including assessments on source of wealth, nature of business, and country risk – tailored to their own risk policies has helped streamline the onboarding process for customers.
As a result, Penguin Securities has seen improved operational efficiency and a strengthened compliance function that can better detect, mitigate, and manage AML/CTF risks.
Future plans for the company include AI-powered workflows, increased data-driven insights, and automation to support expansion into new markets and products. The Penguin Securities team envisions the compliance role evolving from a cost center to a value driver delivering impact for the business.
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