From left: Caren Schwannauer, Winston John Paiva, Anja Luedemann, Archit Kogta, Rohit Patil, Daniel Doerr, Simon Dix. Image: DX Solutions
Our Start-up of the Week is DX Solutions, a platform set up to simplify the management of money laundering risks in the world of banking and fintech.
Prior to founding DX Solutions, Simon Dix was the head of compliance for anti-money laundering (AML) in a German challenger bank.
He worked closely with international authorities and national governments to advise on changes to legislation and the realities within business, and used this experience to start his own company based in Dublin.
Most of the team he gathered for DX Solutions come from AML backgrounds in financial institutions of all sizes – challenger banks, fintech start-ups and well-known international banks. Together, they’re now developing software to help these types of institutions better manage their AML compliance concerns.
‘Risk is not ‘standard’ because human life is not black and white’
– SIMON DIX
The market
“Anyone who is not an AML specialist or understands the space will usually hear AML and think, ‘Oh, that’s been done – they’re just on-boarding the customer!’,” Dix told Siliconrepublic.com.
“What they don’t realise is that Know Your Customer (KYC) only accounts for about 20pc of the wider AML obligations required. The real risk for customers lies in everything that happens after the customer is on-boarded.
“Luckily for us, the people inside our clients’ businesses know what they are doing and are finally seeing the limitations of other solutions they have been buying or building.”
Dix said that his company is different from existing players in the market because it offers more specialised services and can work with financial institutions and fintech companies of various shapes and sizes.
“Our specialities are really focused on monitoring behaviour and transactions of customers to detect suspicious activity, and on automating many of the back-office processes that our competitors have not covered.
“We provide software, which caters to the unique needs of challenger banks, payment service providers and high transaction volume businesses. We also have offerings for private banks and wealth management.”
The tech
Dix provided some insight into the technology behind his start-up’s service. “Everything from the UX right through to the deepest levels of the company’s tech is handled with a unique approach,” he said.
“Risk is not ‘standard’ because human life is not black and white. It’s full of both legitimate and non-legitimate anomalies and nuances. Our job is to understand this and help institutions mitigate the risk – that’s why our algorithm adapts to the setting it is in and to the transactions it sees, as well as the way that users work.
“We don’t want our clients to avoid risk entirely. We aim to help them navigate the risks and grow their businesses.”
The future
The ultimate goal for DX Solutions is to become the gold standard against which all legal and compliance software is measured, its CEO said.
Right now, the company is going through a period of growth, which is happening faster than the start-up had anticipated. It has been approached by a number of new customers after it was present at several international fintech conferences throughout the year.
DX Solutions aims to open a seed funding round at the end of September and, according to Dix, the company has commitment for more than half of the fund already.
Advice
Dix recommends that other self-starters in Ireland learn to understand their weaknesses. “Surround yourself with people who are significantly better at one or two things than you could ever even want to be,” he added.
He also believes there are plenty of resources in the Irish start-up scene. “Enterprise Ireland have been particularly helpful in helping to get a foot into overseas markets.”
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