The global market, especially in the conditions for the functioning of companies, is available to everyone, including all its advantages and dangers. The risk of cooperation with suspicious clients and potential dangers of money laundering and terrorist financing are a threat to every company and institution. One of the solutions to overcome these risks is being worked on by Citechsuite, which since 2017.

We talk to the company's CEO Aleksandar Velkov about the Metricity platform and its capabilities. He explains that the team, consisting of software engineers Nikola Kusibojovski and Simeon Zdraveski, Biljana Sekulovska and Magdalena Malezanska who come from the banking sector, technical leader Dragan Zahariev and Bojan Pop Trajkov, wants to translate their experience into a software product. Their vision is to set a standard for dealing with financial fraud. Metricity – Know Your Client, Velkov points out, is the first product, and three more are planned, Transaction Monitoring, Reporting Module and Regulatory Compliance Module!

Mr. Velkov, please explain to us in more detail what kind of solution is the Metricity platform?

Metricity is a software solution that analyzes the risk of money laundering and terrorist financing, performs client verification and thereby enables compliance with the Law on the Prevention of Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism (LMPFT). Metricity is designed for entities that are obliged to take measures and actions to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing in accordance with the LMPFT, for companies that want to introduce higher standards in their operations and ensure that the persons they cooperate with will not expose their business to additional risks.

How can clients use the platform?

Access to Metricity is through quick and simple registration on the online platform, and after registering, the client selects the risk factors option, selects periodic checks on international blacklists and embargoed parties, and all this within one to two minutes allows them to start using Metricity. Anyone who uses Metricity can enter their customers manually, import them via file or call our data exchange adapters, so-called "API interfaces". The system generates warnings if customer data is missing, if there is a potential match with a person on international or blacklists, if a customer is assessed as risky in terms of money laundering, if there are certain suspicions regarding customers. The system offers mechanisms for reducing and managing the risk of money laundering and terrorist financing, in order to reduce the vulnerability of the business to these risks. Metricity is currently available on the Macedonian market, and in 2020 the software will be available globally.

What is your innovation that attracts Metricity clients?

Metricity represents the so-called “SaaS – Software as a Service”. What does that mean? We offer small and medium-sized companies and entities the AML- Responsible Person service, translated into Metricity. Instead of investing in recruiting new employees, as well as training those employees, these companies will use Metricity for that purpose and will reduce costs. The price for using Metricity also includes training. For large companies and entities that are legally obliged to have anti-money laundering departments, we offer the AML- Department service, translated into Metricity. The department has insight into how the money laundering risk assessment is calculated for clients and associates, and at the same time, employees in the Department will be able to create and adjust their own risk indicators without having programming knowledge.

What are the advantages for companies of using Metricity?

Companies will use Metricity through a monthly subscription, which means that they will have a monthly cost, and will not need an initial investment, which is the case when purchasing other software. In addition, this principle significantly reduces the period until starting to use the software, and customers are also offered technical support and introductory training. Metricity is accessible from any device and from anywhere in the world, all that is needed is an internet connection. All customers of companies and entities have an automatically generated risk profile (low, medium and high) after initial registration and can be reviewed or printed as a report at any time. We also provide customers with direct access to Metricity through the "Client App", which will facilitate the process for companies in fully verifying their customers. For persons who are determined to be high risk, risk reduction mechanisms are offered, which are part of the enhanced analysis through Metricity.

What are the risks if companies do not comply with positive anti-money laundering regulations?

The regulator foresees a fine for these companies, as well as for the responsible persons in the companies themselves. Reputational risk is present and it can negatively affect the business as a whole. Every day we witness cases when a negative reputation destroys entire companies. If some companies and entities simply want to work only with already known clients, and reject new and unknown clients who are risky, this can significantly affect their profits. We offer a solution for those clients as well.

You cooperate with both FITR and the UKIM accelerator. Tell us more about that support.

We applied to the "Startup" call from FITR, within the Support Instrument - Co-financed grants for newly established start-up and spin-off companies. The total value of the project is 35,219 euros, with 15 percent of those funds representing our own co-financing. Through the UKIM accelerator, we entered an accelerator program that lasted eight weeks. The goal of that program was to adapt the product and the idea for the product to be presented to potential investors, and at the end of the program itself there was a demo day, where all the companies that were part of the program presented their products to potential investors.