Trade COmpliance

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Secure your operations by meeting the requirements of regulators regarding sanctions and TBML/FT.
Eliminate tedious manual controls to improve the profitability of your trade finance line of business.
Better understand your clients’ operations for a more insightful client relationship.

LESTR: a data collection and analysis solution to automatically assess the compliance of international trade operations

The rapid growth in the global economy has made trade finance a high-risk product often used to launder funds, conduct terrorist financing and evade sanctions regulations or other restrictions. Financial institutions undertaking trade finance business are under significant regulatory pressure to mitigate financial crime risks. The problem is that potentially suspicious activities can occur at multiple levels and at various points in trade transactions. It can be related to the characteristics of a particular customer, or at a transaction level with regards to the goods, documents, counterparties, etc.

From that perspective, the ability to screen a transaction to ensure that it does not violate any sanction or regulation is based on the capability to:

Connect data sources

A 360° view of your shipments
Lestr provides a synthetic view, easy to read and to navigate into, evidencing the main characteristics and risks of your shipments. Over 100 data sources are constantly updated and used for this purpose. Lestr differs from other solutions by its ability to accurately analyse each transaction based on all its dimensions: transport/logistics chain, nature and price of the goods, stakeholders, economic context, etc.
A recognised technology
This 360° view generation of each shipment is based on cutting edge technology enabling a real-time data collection from a multitude of sources. This technology is largely recognised for its breakthrough innovation as evidenced by the numerous data processing innovation awards won and the large track record of credentials with leading international companies.
The fullest coverage on container tracking
Lestr does not simply track and trace the ship indicated on the bill of lading, but provides an end-to-end tracking of the goods from the moment they are handed over to the shipping company or freight forwarder until the moment they are delivered to the recipient. Our experience shows that about 70% of shipments involve at least one transhipment, which is why it is of critical importance to perform controls at containers level and not just at vessels level.
Lestr integrates different types of data sources: carriers and freight forwarders, marine trackers, sanction lists, etc.
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Lestr uses the data collected on each shipment to automatically carry out most of the controls expected by the most demanding regulators.
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Automate controls

Two levels of controls
Lestr automatically carries out controls on each shipment in order to prevent and detect illicit activities. These controls screen the transaction at two levels. At step one, Lestr considers the relevance of the transaction from a purely transactional perspective. At step two, Lestr focuses on considering transactions in a wider context by including all past transactions for the same customer, as well as a set of similar transactions determined dynamically (including the type of goods, sector of activity, the geographical area, etc.).
The combination of these two approaches currently covers most of the “red flags” presented in the literature.
Multi-source reconciliations
Lestr cross-checks information between different data sources in order to detect any discrepancy. For instance, Lestr analyses the consistency of the shipping routes used by vessels involved in the shipment by cross-checking carriers’ information with AIS signal of vessels. Thus, not only do the teams in charge of the controls have almost real-time information, but any deviation between the declared maritime route and the route actually taken is also identified and analysed in order to detect any illicit activity. In the same spirit, Lestr checks the coherence of the bill of lading by making sure that the information disclosed in your document (containers, place of loading and unloading, etc.) complies with the information provided by the shipping company and/or the freight forwarder. Any discrepency in these elements could highlight a documentary fraud or even a “phantom shipping”.
Anomaly detection
The use of unsupervised analysis and machine learning capabilities mainly based on an extension of Isolation Forest allows Lestr to detect any anomalies (inconsistency with international trade flows, detection of over and under invoicing of goods, etc.) or significant changes in customer habits.

Provide an efficient support for decision making

Information-sharing functions
The mobilisation of additional areas of expertise on shipments requiring further examination is facilitated by the provision of information-sharing functions related to the shipment and the analyses already carried out.
For customers who require a fully-integrated experience, we can complement these standard sharing features with an API-based approach in order to interface Lestr with internal escalation tools.
Tamper-proof audit trail
A level of compliance can only be deemed satisfactory if a reliable audit trail can be produced, enabling a third party to make an objective judgement on the relevance and quality of the controls carried out. With Lestr, the production of a comprehensive audit trail is automatic, encompassing all controls that have been applied to each shipment, irrespective of whether they are initial or additional controls, automatic or manual controls.
Downloadable by the operator, this tamper-proof audit trail can also be archived in your customer database. It remains therefore readily available at any time in the event of an internal audit or a request from the competent authorities.
Your own centralised knowledge base
Lestr enables you to build and operate a centralised knowledge base on your shipments with a double benefit. First, the consolidated vision makes it possible to detect patterns requiring enhanced control over certain customers or types of shipments. Second, you gain a better understanding of your business line, enabling you to improve customer service and design better retention / acquisition plans.
The knowledge database can easily be sliced and diced any way you want it, allowing to deliver statistical views sorted on one or more criteria.

LESTR: your one stop-shop for Trade Compliance

The first solution able to flag suspicious activities in each and every facet involved in a trade finance transaction.

Respect international sanctions

Track your shipments and get automatic alerts in case of embargoed ports and countries involved in your cargo journey or in the vessel's history.
Screen all organisations (shipper, consignee, registered owner of vessels, etc.), individuals and vessels involved in your transaction to detect any criminal activity.

Mitigate TBML risks

Detect documentary fraud in bill of ladings.
Control high-risk goods and goods mis-invoicing.
Analyse the consistency of the transaction against a set of red flags based on guidelines and best practices and against similar transactions (from the same shipper, with the same goods, etc.).

Escalate suspicious activities

Assign roles with specific access controls to allow your team to collaborate and escalate controls and alerts following your organisation's process.

Better collaborate with regulatory authorities

Generate a tamper-proof audit trail in one click.
Monitor all your transactions from the same place.

"The value added by the solution is in time saved. Since the time needed to perform controls is divided by five - reduced to 10 minutes, this is on top of the increased transparency for the customer."

Béatrice COLLOT
Head of Global Trade and Receivable Finance at HSBC France

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international trade operations?

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