Matt Beattie, Partner and Co-founder at BeyondFS, has spent years working on major financial crime change programmes. In his experience, successful projects usually depend on getting under the skin of the data - improving its quality, making it more accessible, or simply using it more effectively.
Matt works closely with financial crime and compliance leaders to help them get more from their data – not just to stay compliant, but to drive real business value. We sat down with him to find out how financial crime teams can make better use of the valuable data they have.
Financial crime teams hold vast amounts of data. How can they use it beyond just compliance?
Financial crime departments hold data that spans the entire client base and all related activity. Naturally, it’s critical for compliance. But it can also offer insights into how the business is performing overall. By analysing what products clients use, where they’re most active, and where they’re most profitable, financial crime data can help front-office teams make better decisions and uncover opportunities to serve clients more effectively.
Can you give an example of how this data can reveal valuable insights?
Sure. In one case, we began by compiling and reviewing compliance data to understand a bank’s client base. As we dug into the details, patterns emerged—product mixes, credit limits, sales credits, and overall profitability. That let us see which client profiles were highly profitable and which weren’t. From there, the bank was able to decide whether to maintain certain relationships or rationalise clients that were too expensive to administer, ultimately improving profitability.
Is that just a one-off exercise, or does it have ongoing benefits?
It can start as a one-off project to integrate and analyse multiple data sources. But once you’ve built a process to do that systematically, you can monitor trends over time - tracking client profitability, product usage, or onboarding progress. You can also discover if certain deals take, say, six months to become profitable and plan accordingly. This creates a repeatable process that continuously informs the business.
How can Heads of Financial Crime pitch the business value of better data management to the board?
Begin by showing them the sheer amount of data these teams collect and explaining how it can serve the business beyond compliance. Financial crime typically brings together data from many sources—client records, product usage, credit data, you name it. Explaining how that data can be used by other teams for strategic decisions forms a compelling business case. You’ll also need to communicate with business and functional heads so everyone sees the shared benefit of improving data quality and access.
Are there any quick wins you’d suggest to prove early commercial value?
We usually recommend starting with a specific, tangible business problem. That could start with something as simple as identifying how many clients you have and which products they use, or spotting desks that share the same clients. Build a robust process to answer that initial question. Once you have that foundation, it often prompts more questions and leads to richer insights. The key is to pick a straightforward problem, solve it well, and demonstrate the ROI.
How do you get data specialists and business users working together effectively?
The simplest and most effective way is to have them sit together - literally. When analysts understand the business context and see how decisions are made, they can tailor their analysis to real needs. Likewise, business leaders who understand the challenges of data cleansing and analytics can give more precise feedback. In real-time collaboration, you can quickly validate whether the data looks right and adjust as needed.
How have you seen that kind of collaboration work really well?
It comes down to the right mindset on both sides. Data analysts who are genuinely curious about the business - rather than trying to force overly complex models - and business leaders who appreciate the power of data, will create the strongest partnership. When both sides see each other as essential to solving problems, they can iterate rapidly and base decisions on real insights.
Are financial crime teams aware of just how crucial their data can be?
Awareness is growing. Data has been a hot topic for years, and financial crime functions are noticing that they’re sitting on information that goes well beyond compliance. The tools available to analyse data are also improving, letting business users do more themselves. Still, there’s a lot of work to be done, especially around getting the data clean and consistent so it can provide accurate insights.
What are the main barriers holding banks back from using their financial crime data more effectively?
Often, that data has been collected over years in disparate systems without much thought beyond ticking regulatory boxes. You end up with multiple versions of the same record or contradictory fields. Bringing these sources together and deciding what’s accurate requires effort, time, and investment. It’s not just an IT problem, though; it needs business input to make sense of what’s valid and what isn’t.
What technology solutions would you recommend?
Plenty of powerful tools can combine and clean data sets—ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) solutions, for instance. But before adopting any sophisticated platform, it’s wise to understand your data and your goals. You don’t always need the most advanced tool at first. Start by exploring what your data can tell you. From there, if you need specialised skills or technology, you can bring them in with a clearer sense of purpose.
So, do organisations need pristine data before they adopt new tools?
Not necessarily. Skilled teams can use tools to clean and align data as they go. The key is to start somewhere - begin analysing, see what insights emerge, and identify gaps or inaccuracies. As you get deeper, you’ll see which capabilities or additional technology you need. Trying to perfect your data before doing any analysis can be a long and frustrating process.
Finally, can you share a real-world example where a bank went from having minimal data insights to truly understanding and leveraging their client population data?
We see it regularly, especially in remediations. Often, we’ll walk in and find the organisation doesn’t fully know who its clients are or how they engage with the bank. We help them pull together and clean their client data – which reveals everything from compliance gaps to product profitability. Once leaders see the value, they tend to expand these efforts - linking it to credit, onboarding processes, and regulatory workflows. Over time, it transforms their understanding of the client base and enables them make more data-driven decisions.
Thanks, Matt, for explaining how financial crime data can be both a compliance tool and a strategic asset.
My pleasure. I’m glad to shine a light on how something traditionally viewed as a cost centre can create real business value.
