Paragon Bank links with TruNarrative to bolster due diligence

Following the firm’s recent approval from the British Business Bank, Paragon Bank has procured business onboarding and automated due diligence technology services from RegTech firm, TruNarrative.

It enables Paragon to deliver bounce back loans to SMEs as they continue to navigate beyond the Covid-19 economic situation.

Edward Vaughan, Head of Banking, TruNarrative commented: “Combining the technical proficiencies of Paragon Bank’s IT Team and depth of domain knowledge from their Financial Crime Team, we have collectively demonstrated that financial crime change projects can be completed in a matter of weeks rather than months or years. 

“The resultant outcome is that the Financial Crime Team now has an enhanced capability that can positively support the commercial aspirations of the Bank to deliver an exceptional and frictionless customer experience. We continue to look forward to future initiatives with Paragon Bank.”

Via a single API, the TruNarrative platform seeks to deliver automated customer onboarding, financial crime prevention, fraud, money laundering detection, ID and biometric verification, multi-bureau eKYC, eKYB, PEPs and Sanctions, and anomaly detection.

Following Paragon’s appointment as the 20th Bounce Back Loans Scheme provider, it required a solution to deliver real-time financial crime decisioning and risk rating of linked entities and individuals so Bounce Back loans can be processed as quickly as possible.

The TruNarrative platform is integrated with Paragon Bank’s core architecture and will initially facilitate the onboarding of SMEs specifically for the Bounce Back Loans Scheme.

Warren Stevenson, IT Director at Paragon Bank, added: “The Covid-19 crisis has meant that as a business Paragon Bank has had to react quickly and effectively to adapt our processes and IT systems to support our customers. 

“As part of our BBLS development we needed to select a partner who could provide not only the technology we required, but also work with our internal team to deliver a robust solution to very demanding timeframes, TruNarrative has proven it has the capabilities to do this and we will continue to work with them on future enhancements to support our customers.”

The partnership will give Paragon Bank potential access to a range of capabilities, including device risk profiling, KYB risk insights, electronic identity verification, enhanced fraud detection using Cifas data, Peps, Sanctions and Adverse Media.

The TruNarrative platform allows Paragon to review and rapidly adapt its risk scores, thresholds and constantly monitor risk within its SME customer base for BBLS.