E-money and Digital Payments

Balance operational efficiency, risk mitigation and regulatory compliance

To navigate ever-evolving financial crime risk across money laundering, terrorist financing and economic sanctions, clients need a partner with extensive financial crime compliance (FCC) expertise. Drawing upon their deep understanding of the FCC landscape, our team of global professionals facilitate sustainable, auditable financial crime programmes. Our offerings include:

• Anti-money laundering (AML)/ Countering the financing of terrorism (CFT) managed services,
• AML/CTF audit and assurance testing,
• Regulatory mandated risk and control assurance reviews,
• AML/CTF sanctions model validation, and
• AML/CTF framework reviews.

Meet regulatory expectations and increase customer confidence

In recent Dear CEO letters, both the Central Bank of Ireland (CBI) and the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) highlighted safeguarding as the number-one priority for regulated firms.

Grant Thornton offers a host of accelerators and a team of regulatory, assurance, governance and risk specialists with deep knowledge of safeguarding frameworks—and experience addressing regulatory requirements and expectations. We specialise in:

• safeguarding audits mandated by CBI and FCA,
• risk mitigation and remediation activities,
• readiness assessments and gap analysis, and
• design and assessment of target operating models (TOMs).

Grow sustainably while fortifying your digital strategy

The regulation around financial crime and digital services is increasingly complex, and compliance demands specialised expertise. We can assess your IT general controls and guide your company so that it stays ahead of evolving standards and requirements, including:

• the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA),
• the Network and Information Security 2 Directive (NIS2),
• EC Payment Services Directives (PSD2/PSD3),
• the Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA), and
• Service Organization Control Type 2 (SOC 2).

Expand your business model to satisfy clients’ changing needs

We guide firms through the CBI’s process to become an authorised payment institution (PI) or electronic money institution (EMI) in Ireland. Once they’re established, we help them comply with ongoing legal requirements.

Our application lifecycle support services include:

• preparing authorisation documentations, 
• analysing business continuity risks,
• assessing governance, risk controls and compliance frameworks, and
• engaging with the regulator through the license lifecycle.

Maintain operational excellence in an ever-evolving industry

Partner with us to strengthen your governance, risk management and internal control environment. Our experienced Audit and Assurance teams can help you enhance transparency and address challenges arising from rapid innovation and regulatory scrutiny. 

Our experts can provide solutions tailored to the payment services industry, including:

• risk-based external and internal audits,
• risk mitigation programme assurance,
• special investigations and skilled person reviews,
• third-party audits and vendor compliance programmes, and
• Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) design and assurance programmes.

Optimise your tax strategies to support business growth

To navigate the global digital payments landscape and succeed in international markets, you need expertise in complex tax rules and regulations. Our tax experts deliver comprehensive compliance and advisory services to ensure your organisation meets its tax obligations efficiently.

We offer expertise in:

• global mobility and payroll,
• digital tax transformation,
• tax policy and governance, 
• tax controversy,
• reward, employment and share plans (investor structuring), and
• tax accounting.

Enhance your financial operations and drive success

Through outsourcing and co-sourcing, our global managed services help you improve efficiency while meeting your global process requirements. Optimise your resource management and ensure compliance with the support of our global team of experts. 

We tailor cost-effective, end-to-end solutions across:

• functional areas including procure-to-pay (PTP), record-to-report (RTR), order-to-cash (OTC) and financial planning and analysis (FP&A),
• global payroll,
• global compliance and reporting,
• anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CTF) operations, and
• flexible surge capacity.