“Raising the Bar” of knowledge and capabilities of Cayman’s compliance professionals will be the aim of the Sixth Annual Anti-Money Laundering, Compliance and Financial Crime Conference, which is going to be held on Thursday and Friday 14-15 October at the Marriott Beach Resort.

The two day event, hosted by Global Compliance Solutions “will be a fantastic learning experience for everyone, including for us, the speakers,” said Juan Llanos, who will give two presentations at the conference.

“What I like about this conference is its diversity and breadth of topics and speakers, which is a reflection of a trend that has been developing over the past few years – the convergence of regulatory compliance, fraud, financial crime prevention, anti-money laundering and governance into the all-encompassing realm of risk management in a world without frontiers.”

AML professionals can no longer afford to focus on a single subject, geography or area of expertise, because technology, cost and performance drivers are pushing for a holistic approach, he emphasised, noting that “the GCS Conference will be the perfect forum for this type of holistic learning experience”.

Llanos, a vice president of service operations and compliance officer for Unidos Financial Services, stated that besides the learning opportunity the chance to interact and network with peers, regulators and executives is another important part of such an event. “The GCS conference in particular has always kept its edge with regards to both learning and networking, and struck an uncommon balance between form and substance, structure and contents,” he said.

Overall the two-day conference includes 12 hours of training sessions, a cocktail reception, and breakfast and lunch for both days.

Llanos, who has two presentation slots at the conference, said he was glad that he is given the opportunity to address a hard and a soft topic.

“The hard topic is that of emerging payment technologies, mobile and prepaid cards, which I have been working with very actively in the past four years. I will be presenting a lot of material for those interested in understanding the risks of cyberspace,” he said. “The soft topic is something I am very passionate about, the importance of culture and especially how to build a compliance-supporting and integrity-embracing culture. I will do my best to present in a succinct and impactful way the latest and greatest material I’ve been able to collect and research throughout my professional life, and I certainly hope not to disappoint,” he promised.

The mixture of soft and hard topics is reflected in the conference agenda, which encompasses international and local experts like Kenneth Krys, who is going to speak about the dirty secrets that can be exposed by fraud investigators, and whistleblowers like Martin Woods, who during his time at Wachovia detected suspicious traveller’s cheques from money exchanges in Mexico. When he alerted his employers the bank resisted his inquiry of the bank’s dealings, he claimed. Woods will speak at the conference about his experience and a case which this year saw Wachovia, now a unit of Wells Fargo, fined $160 million for breaching the Bank Secrecy Act and in the process helping Mexican drug cartels finance their activities.

Global Compliance Solutions the organisers of the event hope that the conference will showcase the high level of compliance in the Cayman Islands and if possible correct the negative perception that still exists is some foreign media, according to Managing Partner Karen O’Brien.

Additional information about the conference can be found at www.compliancecayman.com