The chair of the global banking unit at Boston Consulting Group in London has joined regulatory technology firm Napier as an adviser to its board.
Andy Maguire, a senior partner at BCG who has chaired its global banking team since mid-2020, was previously group chief operations officer at HSBC with responsibility for the bank’s global cost base and operations in UK, Europe, US, Canada, Latin America and Asia for six years from 2014.
London-headquartered Napier provides around 200 financial organisations worldwide with software to automate their anti-money laundering and trade compliance processes.
Julian Dixon, the chief executive officer of Napier, said Maguire’s appointment as board adviser would give the company “an immeasurable edge in taking this to the next level”.
“He’s highly respected within the finance sector and will bring a number of qualities to our Advisory Board that will only benefit us moving forward, so it really is a major coup,” he said.
Maguire, who was responsible for the development of HSBC’s financial crime and operational risk capabilities as the lender’s group COO, said: “This is a very exciting time for the development of AI-led solutions in the fight against financial crime, and Napier are very much at the forefront of that digital arms race.”
“Now is the time to be nimble, so I’m looking forward to being part of the great work that Napier are doing to transform AML compliance through technology,” he added.
It follows a busy year for compliance teams across the financial services sector. Finance’s internal watchdogs came under huge pressure during the pandemic as the virus crisis forced them to rely more heavily than ever before on technology to keep track of activity across their businesses.
That dynamic also focused bosses’ attention on the value of compliance. Participants in a global compliance survey from trading giant Nasdaq, which was published in December 2020 and polled 210 senior compliance professionals from banks, funds, and market infrastructure firms globally, said that “the importance and influence of compliance departments has never been higher” as it was in 2020.
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