Selected professional experience

Anonymised examples from practice

Situation, exposure, approach and outcome across KYC, risk models, UBO, audit defence, transaction monitoring and sanctions — drawn from the founder's practitioner career and fully anonymised.

The examples below are drawn from the founder's professional experience across prior banking, Channel Islands and West Africa roles and are fully anonymised. They are illustrative of the work and methodology — not presented as Cognitive Compliance Limited corporate client engagements. Figures reflect those engagements as delivered at the time.

Selected examples

Critical United Kingdom · UK-Regulated

Silent Misclassification at Scale

Tier 1 Retail & Private Bank

A legacy risk model silently scored high-risk customers as standard. Retrospective analysis, model reweighting and a documented EDD escalation workflow closed and evidenced the exposure before it became a supervisory matter.

Risk Model Recalibration KYC / CDD EDD Escalation Sanctions & PEP Risk
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Critical Channel Islands · Guernsey

Beneficial Ownership Concealed via PCC Structure

International Private Wealth

A multi-cell Guernsey PCC was treated as a single entity for CDD. Cell-by-cell legal analysis surfaced hidden PEP connections and resolved complex ownership to natural-person level.

UBO Resolution Complex Structures Sanctions & PEP Screening Jurisdictional Analysis
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High Complexity Multi-Jurisdiction

Large-Scale KYC Remediation — A Major Post-Merger Backlog

Tier 1 Retail Bank

A large post-merger backlog of unresolved records, no internal capacity. Risk-tiered programme design, blended delivery and weekly regulator-ready MI carried it through delivery to closure.

KYC Remediation Risk-Tiered Triage Independent QA Regulator-Ready MI
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Strategic United Kingdom · FCA

FCA Thematic Review — Audit Defence & Control Narrative

FCA-Regulated Payments Institution

Notice of an FCA thematic review on transaction monitoring and SAR quality, with no defensible documented framework. A focused readiness sprint built the control narratives, calibration evidence and governance pack the review required.

Regulatory Readiness Transaction Monitoring SAR Quality Control Narrative
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Strategic Channel Islands · GFSC

SDD Eligibility Verification via GFSC-Regulated Prescribed Business

Guernsey Finance / Trust Administration

A trust administrator could not evidence its Simplified Due Diligence eligibility claim. Verified GFSC Prescribed Business status and built a fully documented rationale with a complete audit trail.

SDD / CDD GFSC Regulation Regulatory Cross-Reference Audit Trail & Documentation
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