The Industry Landscape
Building Compliance Resilience in a High-Stakes Crypto Ecosystem
As cryptoassets mature into mainstream financial instruments, organizations face an increasingly complex and fragmented regulatory landscape. Jurisdiction-specific laws, distinctive transaction types, emerging technologies and evolving threats such as “Money Laundering-as-a-Service” demand robust financial crime programs that blend domain expertise with technological agility.
For many cryptoasset enterprises, often tech-first companies, the challenge is not only implementing compliant financial crimes / Anti-Money Laundering (AML) compliance programs but also ensuring their effectiveness against diverse and evolving risks.
The Client Challenge
Fragmented Operations and Skills Gaps in Crypto Financial Crime Investigations
A leading payment infrastructure provider with a global footprint in cryptoassets faced inefficiencies in its financial crime program due to decentralized operations and inconsistent processes across its offshore delivery centers.
Key challenges included:
Decentralized Operations
Multiple delivery centers supporting different jurisdictions with varying policies
Unpredictable Volume Spikes
Frequent changes in business rules and policies created backlogs
Skills Shortage
Limited availability of trained investigators in crypto financial crimes with hands-on knowledge of tracing techniques
High Attrition
Disrupting operational continuity
Jurisdictional Complexity
SAR (Suspicious Activity Report) processes lacked customization for diverse regulatory requirements
The Solution
Centralized Governance and Domain-led Execution
WNS co-created a customized solution through its Crypto Center of Excellence (CoE) to enhance investigation models, improve accuracy and embed agility into the overall delivery at scale.
The transformation included:
Specialized Workforce Development
In-house training content and case studies to upskill subject matter experts; hiring and training investigators with prior crypto experience
Advanced Tools Integration
Adoption of advanced on-chain and open-source tools such as TRM, Elliptic, Arkham, GitHub and IP Location to enhance tracing capabilities
Structured Investigation Framework
A two-tier model, Level 1 Review and Enhanced Review (Levels 2 & 3), for greater efficiency and accuracy
Process Standardization
Interactive checklists, SAR templates and typology trackers for consistent, jurisdiction-specific compliance
Onboarding Optimization
A service-level operating model to accelerate customer onboarding and improve experience
The Outcome
Scalable, Compliant and Future-ready Operations
The engagement transformed a fragmented, high-cost investigation process into a centralized, high-performance model designed to deliver stronger compliance and scalable operations with agility.
The engagement marked a paradigm shift from fragmented, high-cost crypto investigations to a streamlined and scalable model. By embedding best practices, governance and skills into the CoE, WNS helped the client create a future-ready operations model with expert investigators developed in-house to handle crypto-based financial crime investigations.