LANHAM, Md., September 19, 2007 - Group 1 Software, Inc., a Pitney Bowes Company (NYSE:PBI), today announced the launch of Global Sentry™, an automated solution that works in conjunction with a customer’s existing applications to monitor incoming transactions and identify customers who may be on U.S. and international watch lists, such as those maintained by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
“Around the world, governing bodies are becoming ever more vigilant in monitoring the movement of funds associated with known criminals, including terrorists and drug traffickers, among others,” said Jay Bourland, vice president and general manager of Customer Data Quality and Data Integration for Group 1 Software. “As part of these efforts, governments are cracking down on companies who do business with designated countries, individuals and organizations on published watch lists. Failure to compare customer information against these watch lists can lead to public embarrassment, damage to brand equity, significant fines, and lawsuits.”
Group 1 Software’s Global Sentry automates the identification process by providing consolidated, structured, and optimized watch lists from various countries. Robust matching and scoring algorithms handle variations in data supplied, while a knowledgebase supplies an understanding of names across 120 cultures. Global Sentry can also be extended to any external or internal fraud database.
Featuring a powerful and flexible rules-based matching engine, Global Sentry gives full control and visibility for business analysts and compliance officers to modify rules to meet the needs of their organization without requiring any development effort. Powered by Group 1 Software’s field-proven Customer Data Quality (CDQ) Platform, Global Sentry provides pre-configured and optimized rules for matching against the normalized and consolidated watch lists from OFAC, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) in Canada, the European Union, and the Bank of England.
Matches are performed against Country, Name, Address, ID, and other information, such as date of birth, to provide a “Risk Score.” This “Risk Score” allows the organization to make the right choice before deciding to block a particular transaction and avoid false positive results. The solution also offers fuzzy matches to allow for cultural differences in the spelling of a name. For example, depending upon the country or region, Richard may be Ricardo, or Mohammad may be in the database as Mohammet.
“Given the discrepancies in spellings, titles, and first-name, last-name order than can exist in customer data, Global Sentry’s deep cultural understanding and powerful matching engine are key to correctly identifying high-risk individuals,” concluded Bourland.
For more information on Global Sentry, visit: http://www.g1.com/Products/Customer-Data-Quality/Global-Sentry/.
About Group 1 Software
Group 1 Software (www.g1.com) turns data into results, providing innovative software solutions that enable our clients to better understand and connect with their millions of customers, prospects, and partners. Group 1 Software helps over 3,000 organizations maximize the value of customer data to improve profitability, increase effectiveness, and strengthen customer relationships, through consolidating, cleansing and enriching corporate data, and generating personalized business documents for multi-channel delivery, customer care and efficient business processing. Our comprehensive Customer Communications Management (CCM) solutions span from database to delivery, adding value to every aspect of communication and allowing clients to integrate intelligence throughout their mailstream. As part of Pitney Bowes (NYSE:PBI), a $5.6 billion company, Group 1 Software’s solutions are utilized by leaders in the insurance, financial services/banking, GIS/mapping, government, mail services, retail, telecommunications, utility, and other industries, including Entergy, ING, L.L. Bean, MapQuest, Microsoft, Safeco Insurance, Wal-Mart and Wells Fargo.
Global Sentry, Group 1, Group 1 Software, and the Group 1 logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Group 1 Software, Inc. Pitney Bowes, and the Pitney Bowes Process Bar Design are trademarks or registered trademarks of Pitney Bowes, Inc.. All other brand names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners.