Tuesday 15 March 2016

Terra and LexisNexis Risk Solutions team-up to risk-proof international transactions


– World’s leading mobile payments company chooses LexisNexis® Risk Solutions to augment 
counter-measures  against anti-money laundering and keep payments safe and secure

– Facilitates proactive prevention of financial crime by monitoring transactions for risk in real-
time 

– Lowered risk exposure and compliance costs assist remittance service providers to securely 
expand reach among previously underserved financial segments


ATLANTA and AMSTERDAM (March 15, 2016) --  Terra, a mobile-first international payment 
network, incubated by Mahindra Comviva, announced today a strategic collaboration with 
LexisNexis® Risk Solutions, a global big data, technology and analytics company, to protect its 
network against financial crime and facilitate secure growth of mobile-powered cross-border 
transactions.
The globalization of financial markets and the growing move to digitize remittances have made it 
easy to move funds to any corner of the world. With an increase in the volume of activity, there is a 
heightened need to safeguard money transfer networks from potential money laundering and to 
strengthen compliance.  
In the wake of intensifying regulatory requirements and strict compliance controls, combating 
money laundering and fraud represent a major challenge for international money transfers. Globally, 
service providers continue to grapple with mounting complexity and costs of compliance -- 
resources, time and money -- which, in turn, raises barriers to entry for new players and impacts 
growth of existing players. According to industry estimates risk management and other costs tied to 
AML compliance have risen more than 50 percent year-on-year.
Terra interconnects mobile wallet service providers, banks and remittance companies to build a 
global network to serve remittance-dependent households in regions with low banking penetration, 
primarily Asia, Africa and Latin America. The ability to implement effective measures to protect 
service integrity whilst balancing escalating compliance cost pressures is crucial to attract partners, 
achieve rapid scale and drive adoption of formal remittance products.
International money transfer networks inherently span multiple jurisdictions and variations in 
Customer Due Diligence and Know-Your-Customer processes across countries make services 
susceptible to misuse. Working with LexisNexis® Risk Solutions provides a robust, first-line of 
defense to secure transactions processed over the Terra network. LexisNexis Risk Solutions deploys 
state-of-the-art intelligence tools to provide an end-to-end customer screening service that detects 
and assesses the compliance and business risks of customers behind a transaction, as well as 
monitors counter-parties for risk profile changes. 

LexisNexis Risk Solutions delivers actionable information on potentially risky transactions to enable 
informed authorization decisioning in real-time. For example, Terra can proactively block suspicious 
transactions based on the originator or the beneficiary’s risk score. By conducting payer and payee 
risk assessments on a global scale, participants on the Terra network derive the maximum leverage 
of knowledge from different law enforcement and supervisory authorities, which strengthens 
domestic monitoring and compliance to build a secure transaction environment.
Commenting on the alliance, Ambar Sur, Founder and CEO, Terra said: “Working with LexisNexis Risk Solutions, a market leader in risk management and compliance services, helps us to conduct 
business globally with confidence. Terra derives economic value from the power of establishing 
global connections between multiple service providers. The ability to maintain the highest level of 
security and deliver a trusted transaction environment is our priority number one. Terra with 
LexisNexis Risk Solutions strengthens risk governance by providing an enhanced layer of protection 
against potential misuse, and empowers all scheme participants to meet regulatory requirements 
whilst minimizing time, resource and operational costs.” 
 “We’re honoured to be selected by Terra as its compliance risk management solutions provider,” 
said Thomas C. Brown, Senior Vice President, U.S. Commercial Markets and Global Market 
Development, LexisNexis® Risk Solutions. “When working with companies like Terra our goal is to 
collaborate to ensure that their risk management processes operate as efficiently as possible. One 
way we do that is by creating highly-effective screening procedures that lower operational costs 
through false-positive reduction. By way of our WorldCompliance™ solution Terra, and companies 
like Terra, have access to global, timely risk coverage.”  
LexisNexis® Risk Solutions and Terra are focusing collective efforts on combating fraud and providing participants on the Terra network with a secure business environment. A shared resource across 
multiple partners encourages consistency and ongoing improvements in the execution and oversight 
of core compliance functions.  The significant agreement helps LexisNexis® Risk Solutions, a 
company with a rich history steeped in big data technology and entity screening, to expand its 
presence in mobile payments. 
With its deep industry knowledge, data, analytics and high-performance technology, LexisNexis Risk Solutions will provide an uninterrupted customer experience for Terra partners. Transactions are 
screened against sanction sources using a real- time API, which provides a resilient, low-latency 
capability for processing high volumes of traffic reliably.  

 

     

About Terra 

Terra, a mobile-first international payment network, has been founded with the vision to send 
money to any mobile.
Terra interconnects financial services providers -- mobile wallet service providers, money transfer 
operators, banks and payment platforms – to create a “one network” for secure and seamless 
transnational movement of funds. The network facilitates a broad transaction set including 
interpersonal transfers, e-payments and government disbursements. 
Terra is platform agnostic and supports standard open APIs for integration with any mobile wallet 
provider. Through a single connection, partners gain access to a global payment network enabling 
rapid services up-scaling whilst minimizing Opex and Capex investments. As a fully regulated 
financial intermediary services network, Terra offers services beyond principal core transaction, 
routing and processing functions and assumes end-to-end responsibility for, regulatory compliance 
foreign exchange management and funds settlement.



About LexisNexis® Risk Solutions

LexisNexis® Risk Solutions is a leader in providing essential information that helps customers across industries and government predict, assess and manage risk. Combining cutting-edge technology, 
unique data and advanced analytics, LexisNexis Risk Solutions provides products and services that 
address evolving client needs in the risk sector while upholding the highest standards of security and 
privacy. LexisNexis® Risk Solutions is part of RELX Group plc, a world-leading provider of information solutions for professional customers across industries. 



Media Contacts

Terra Contact

Sundeep Mehta

Global PR Manager

Contact: +91 124 481 9000

E-mail: contactus@terrapay.com

 LexisNexis® Risk Solutions Contact

Jean Creech Avent

Director, Media and Analyst Relations

Contact: +770-807-4816

E-mail: jean.creech@lexisnexis.com

No comments:

Post a Comment