Tracy Manning is the Director of Financial Crime at LexisNexis Risk Solutions, and is Tom Fox’s guest this week on this episode of the Innovation In Compliance Podcast. She is a digital identity and financial crime expert, and currently leads the Commercial Strategy and Product Innovation for Financial Crime Market at LexisNexis. In this episode, Tracy and Tom are discussing the growth of digital transactions in the past year and what issues it may pose for compliance.

The Growth of Digital Transformation
Tracy remarks that the pandemic spurred digital growth, especially digital transactions. Digital commerce grew 44% last year, and its rate of acceleration is about five to seven years ahead. She adds that surveys show that these trends will not reverse, even as the world reverts to pre-pandemic environments. 
Greater the Explosion, Greater the Risk 
“With this explosion obviously we have greater opportunities, but I think perhaps greater risk,” Tracy says. While the vast growth of digital transformations is a plus and makes for greater opportunities for companies with respect to data, it also poses greater risks. Criminals have found new ways and schemes for evading financial crime control. Tracy explains key ways they leverage the anonymity of these faceless transactions. She adds that the onus is on companies to protect consumer data from these bad actors.
Key Questions & Guidance
Now that businesses are physically reopening, Tom asks Tracy to share some advice LexisNexis gives to companies. Tracy explains that companies are stumped on how they can transform their processes to better identify financial crime risk, create better customer experiences, and meet the emerging regulatory requirements. She adds that the most important challenge companies seek help with is achieving all these simultaneously. LexisNexis counsels these companies to keep their eyes on recent enforcement and newly published guidance due to the emergence of new threat schemes. It’s also important for companies to have a tool that can effectively meet regulatory demands, which can also create an improved customer experience. “Looking at digital identity is very, very critical…Digital evasion requires digital solutions,” she tells Tom. 
What’s Next
As digital transactions evolve, Tracy stresses that companies need to evolve their compliance for this new digital normal by applying additional layers of digital identity intelligence within their organizations in a multi-layered approach. “An additional layer of digital identity intelligence is absolutely key to optimizing the customer experience…It can potentially allow you to identify good trusted customers and expedite their experience,” Tracy tells Tom. She adds that to fight financial crime, as well as having an additional layer of digital identity, companies need to have networks of their own. 
Resources
Tracy Manning | LinkedIn | Twitter