London-based GSS, a revolutionary regulatory compliance platform, has recently secured a whopping $47 million in funding. With the rise of economic sanctions against countries like Russia, China, and Iran, GSS has become essential in helping financial institutions meet their obligations.
GSS was founded by Tom Scampion, former head of financial crime for Deloitte’s EMEA division. He left his position in 2020 to become a general partner at the renowned consulting firm, AlixPartner. This is where GSS was first developed before gaining independence as a separate entity in 2021.
Last year, the company raised a similar amount of funding from top-tier investors, including Japan’s Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), one of the world’s largest banks. For this latest round, GSS welcomed another financial powerhouse as a backer: Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), along with Cynosure Group and AlixPartner.
Due to their role in controlling the flow of money globally, banks often face strict sanctions enforcement. However, it can be challenging for them to identify who is sending money to whom. In fact, in 2019, Standard Chartered was fined $1.1 billion by both UK and US regulators for lacking proper money-laundering controls and violating sanctions against countries like Iran. Similarly, in 2014, BNP Paribas was hit with a colossal $8.9 billion fine for processing financial transactions for sanctioned countries as defined by the US.
That is why investors are increasingly supporting regulatory compliance businesses, such as New York-based Droit, which raised $23 million last year, and London’s SteelEye, which secured $21 million in funding.
GSS offers a powerful platform for screening sanctions, critical for the compliance of banks and other financial institutions. These institutions input transaction data into GSS’s cloud-based system, which then generates an alert if there is a match with a set of standardized sanctions lists from around the world. In addition, GSS adds valuable data points to these lists, including dates of birth, International Maritime Organization (IMO) numbers for ships, and details from the financial transfer systems of sanctioned countries like Russia and China.
Furthermore, GSS also provides “enhanced” lists for screening purposes, which include companies that are partly owned by individuals, companies, or governments that have been sanctioned by OFAC, the EU, or the UK.
With the recent round of funding, totaling $47 million, GSS is now shifting from the “development phase” to a fully operational state. The company is gearing up to go live with its first customers, marking a significant milestone on its journey towards revolutionizing global sanctions compliance.
