Mamadou Diouf, Anis Guermazi, Souheil Skander
BSIC, a pan-African group operating in 14 countries, was founded in Libya in 1999 with a mission to support the development efforts of Sahelo-Saharan states. Two of its subsidiaries are already certified to AML 30001, the international standard for combating financial crime: asset management and brokerage firm BSIC Capital, and BSIC Sénégal. But an announcement of unprecedented scale was made in Paris: every entity in the Group will be brought into the certification process over the next 24 months.
Anis Guermazi, Chief Executive Officer of BSIC Capital, Sami Gargouri, Chief Executive Officer of BSIC Sénégal, and Mamadou Diouf, Central Director of the Group’s Equity Investments division, break down these large-scale initiatives.
Why did you decide to pursue international certification?
Anis Guermazi: Certification shows that, contrary to certain preconceptions, African banks have reached a high level of maturity in putting anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing measures in place and complying with international rules. Certifying the subsidiary in charge of asset management and investment banking, a first in West Africa, sends a strong signal that the entire financial ecosystem is involved, not just banks themselves.
In our relationships with correspondent banks, certification gives us greater credibility, and the system improvements it requires make transaction processing smoother. It also makes our relationships with funders easier. And with our various regulators, certification is a mark of transparency.
What concrete impact has certification had on your business?
Sami Gargouri: The certification process is extremely structured, and it’s structuring in turn. Combined with regular anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing training, it reassures people, both internally, particularly at senior management level, and externally. Another concrete impact is on our customers, who are increasingly attentive to strict adherence to good practice and ethics. Being compliant with an international standard sends them a strong, positive message. Ultimately, all our stakeholders gain in confidence.
Starting a certification process takes at least six months, and we learn a great deal during that time. By improving our governance framework and our operational risk-detection systems, it has real educational value.
What would you say to companies still hesitant to take the leap into certification?
Sami Gargouri: Changing how investors perceive the African financial sector matters, and it’s something that concerns all of us. The more players submit to certification, the greater the impact will be. Professional associations have an important role to play here.
In an ecosystem where regulatory requirements keep getting stricter, an outside perspective is particularly useful for giving us a different view of our procedures and the standards that apply to us. On that note, I want to stress the importance of the human element: raising awareness among our staff and getting them on board is essential to a successful certification process.
Signing an agreement to certify every subsidiary in the Group is an extremely far-reaching and unprecedented commitment. What are your plans?
Mamadou Diouf: The complete success of the process with our two pilot entities gave us the confidence to extend AML 30001 certification to all twelve of our other banking subsidiaries. It’s a vast and ambitious project, but we collectively benefit from a productive framework for exchange, and we now have a wealth of reference points that will let us make the most of our collective intelligence.
Among our upcoming projects is also ESG 1000 certification, covering extra-financial disclosures; our governance in this area is now a major factor in our attractiveness.
Thanks to the varied experience we’ve already gained across several entities, we’ll be able to put in place more uniform, standardized processes. In the years ahead, we’re moving toward ever greater transparency, compliance, good governance, and alignment with the best international standards. It’s an exciting challenge.