risk intelligence. not opinion.
How financial crime risk really works — and how to manage it better.
These articles explore the real mechanics of financial crime risk — how threats materialise, how controls succeed or fail, and why many traditional risk assessments fall short. They reflect the thinking behind Complyse: an intelligence-led approach to risk assessment designed to support better decisions, not just better documentation.
Threat vectors: Enhancing the architecture of financial crime risk assessment
Risk factors alone cannot explain behaviours. Processes alone cannot explain opportunities. Controls alone cannot explain effectiveness. Threat vectors supply the missing structure (the grammar) that links actors, acts, processes, weaknesses, and controls. If the goal of a BWRA is to understand how the business could be targeted, a threat-vector-based approach is not just an enhancement, it’s essential.
One risk becomes many: The case for a holistic, behaviour-led BWRA
It’s time to move from siloed assessments to a truly holistic, behaviour-led risk management approach. Build your BWRA around how criminals actually operate, not how regulations are organised. This isn’t just more accurate, it’s essential for protecting your business, strengthening controls, and demonstrating real effectiveness to regulators.
One risk, many purposes?
If there is a common weakness in financial crime risk management, it is not the absence of frameworks. It is the failure to agree, explicitly, what each regime is actually trying to achieve. Purpose does not fragment the BWRA; it gives it meaning, and it may finally give risk appetite some clothes.