Financial crime product of the year: LexisNexis Risk Solutions

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The volume, speed and regulatory pressure associated with financial transactions have intensified significantly in recent years. The rise of instant payments, a constantly shifting sanctions landscape and heightened expectations around auditability and explainability have created new challenges for compliance teams globally.

In this environment, LexisNexis^® Risk Solutions has been recognised as the winner of Financial crime product of the year at the Risk Technology Awards 2025 for its transaction screening platform, LexisNexis Firco™ Continuity. The platform stood out to judges for its ability to meet the demands of high-speed screening, reduce false positives and respond flexibly to regulatory and operational changes – particularly under the weight of instant payments regulation and geopolitical uncertainty.

Judges said:

• “A powerful screening solution with good automation and audit features.”
• “Clear alignment with key shifts such as Sepa and MAS’s AI mandate. A strong focus on false-positive reduction.”
• “The volume of transaction processing is impressive, and the ability to analyse and monitor stands out.”
• “My team is dealing with the increasing alert population and reduction of false positives – this is very relevant.”
• “LexisNexis Risk Solutions has data and software – Firco Continuity remains a leader in large institutions.”

Launched decades ago, Firco Continuity is well established among global financial institutions. Today, 21 of the world’s top 25 banks rely on the solution for their financial crime screening operations. Over the past year, the platform has undergone significant development, with new functionality linked to long-standing industry pain points: false-positive alert volumes and the ability to adapt rules and configuration without disrupting live environments.

Two optional enhancements particularly drew the judges’ attention: the Automated Hit Qualifier and Simulation Manager. The former tool is designed to reduce the burden of recurring false positives by applying machine learning-based logic to identify and dismiss alerts that have already been deemed benign in similar historical contexts. The latter allows teams to test configuration changes and understand their potential impact across performance, alert volumes and hit quality, before implementation. This capacity for safe, auditable testing has become increasingly important as firms deal with overlapping regulatory requirements and evolving screening rules.

Beyond its technical improvements, Firco Continuity’s architectural design reflects many of the themes currently shaping compliance technology, including traceability, modularity and speed. All transactions, whether flagged or not, are logged and retained, allowing firms to respond quickly and confidently to regulatory queries. The platform’s filtering engine also supports real-time processing of millions of transactions an hour. This performance will prove critical given Single Euro Payments Area (Sepa) instant payment regulations apply in the European Union from 2025.

The shift to ISO 20022 has further raised the bar for transaction screening solutions. Firco Continuity incorporates tools to extract and analyse enriched payment message data, enabling more precise screening and contextual alerting – essential for financial institutions’ transition away from older formats and the adoption of more structured data flows.

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The solution directly addresses the tension between screening effectiveness and transaction latency in the instant payments space. While most systems struggle to balance speed with risk control, Firco Continuity’s capacity to screen at scale in real time and with a high degree of configurability made it stand out.

Looking ahead, LexisNexis Risk Solutions plans to expand Firco Continuity’s data management capabilities with the roll-out of Infinite Memory, a new archiving module designed to retain and retrieve billions of transaction records without compromising system performance. This development will support firms in providing evidence of configurations, rule applications and decision logic over time in response to global regulators’ intensifying scrutiny of the decisions firms make and how they make them.

The regulatory perimeter continues to expand, with more fintechs, virtual asset providers and non-bank payment service providers coming under scrutiny. Firco Continuity’s adaptability across geographies and business models, aided by its modular structure and multilingual support, makes it well suited to this broadening market.

Regulators are beginning to push for more artificial intelligence-driven capabilities. The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), for example, now requires the use of AI in screening systems. In response, Firco Continuity is exploring machine learning applications that prioritise traceability and explainability alongside detection accuracy to avoid black-box pitfalls.

Sophie Lagouanelle, Vice-president, product, financial crime compliance at LexisNexis Risk Solutions, says:

“This award is a testament to our commitment to helping financial institutions stay ahead of evolving threats and regulatory expectations. Firco Continuity continues to evolve with our clients’ needs – combining speed, precision and transparency to support compliance in the age of instant payments and AI-driven oversight. With flexible deployment options, including secure cloud hosting, we are empowering institutions to scale and adapt with confidence. We’re proud to be recognised for innovation that not only enhances operational efficiency but also strengthens the integrity of the global financial system.” 

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