Risk, financial crime, fraud and AI governance advisory, internationally and across EMEA

Banks, exchange houses, payment and fintech firms, insurers, investment firms and designated non-financial businesses such as real estate brokers, precious metals dealers and professional firms. Most of our clients are regulated in the UAE, Qatar or Saudi Arabia, and we work with groups that operate across the GCC and internationally.

Yes. Kompass is based in Dubai, and we are on the ground in the GCC and at our clients' disposal in their time zones. Our partners and senior management have a long history in the region and understand its business environment, its culture and its languages. Our work takes us across the GCC and well beyond it, and through the firms we partner with we can call on an international presence and a depth of experience that extends far outside the region.

Yes. Our senior management includes a former chief compliance officer of a listed GCC bank who sat on its board risk and compliance committee and led a compliance organisation of some 150 people onshore and offshore, covering financial crime, sanctions, regulatory compliance, conduct, consumer protection and whistleblowing. We know what it is to answer for compliance in front of the board and the regulator, and our advice is written for the person who has to.

Yes. We advise on compliance with the requirements of the Central Bank of the UAE, the Qatar Central Bank, the Saudi Central Bank and the other GCC supervisors, and on the FATF standards that sit behind them. Our partners have led remediation programmes under supervisory scrutiny and prepared institutions for inspections, thematic reviews and mutual evaluations.

Yes, from both sides of the table. Our partners have served a GCC regulator as Skilled Person and as Monitor, and our senior management has managed a two-year monitorship imposed on a listed bank through to its successful conclusion as the bank's chief compliance officer. We know what a monitor looks for, how to organise the evidence, and how to keep the regulator's confidence while the work is done.

Yes. We have led transformation programmes covering governance, board reporting, transaction monitoring and screening systems, customer risk scoring, customer due diligence remediation, offshoring and regulatory reporting. We sequence the work so that the regulator sees progress early, and we build the controls so that they still operate once the programme team has gone.

Yes. We segment customers, set and test scenarios and thresholds with above-the-line and below-the-line testing, review name-matching settings, and build the quality assurance and management reporting that supervisors expect. The result is a documented, evidenced calibration rather than a vendor default.

Both. Our senior management has run corporate banking in Qatar, multinational banking in India, correspondent banking in Hong Kong and trade services in New York, and our partners have held risk roles inside regulated businesses. Controls that ignore how a bank makes money do not survive contact with the business, so we design controls that are proportionate to the risk and let sound business grow.

Yes. Our senior management has led a global bank's liaison with law enforcement, non-governmental organisations and financial crime vendors and its participation in public private partnerships, and has dealt with the central bank, securities and virtual asset regulators in the UAE as a chief compliance officer. We help you prepare for meetings, present remediation credibly and build relationships that hold when something goes wrong.

A review of where AI is used, a risk classification of each system, a governance framework with policy, risk appetite, approval and validation procedures, vendor due diligence and board reporting, mapped to the CBUAE guidance note, the EU AI Act and ISO/IEC 42001. Institutions in Qatar and Saudi Arabia receive the QCB and SDAIA mapping as well.

Yes. Our senior management oversaw a bank's virtual asset activities from the compliance side and holds the ACAMS cryptoasset certification, and our partners have built the monitoring and screening logic that virtual asset flows require. We advise on the UAE virtual asset regimes and on how banks should treat exposure to virtual asset service providers.

Yes. We prepare institutions for inspections and thematic reviews, and when findings are issued we build the remediation plan, the procedures and controls, and the evidence packs that take each finding to regulatory closure.

Each engagement starts with a clearly defined initial scope, a fixed fee and named partner leadership, and concludes with outputs the institution can implement and evidence. Larger programmes follow our five-phase methodology, with the board kept informed at each phase.

Yes. We deliver tailored training for boards, senior management and compliance teams, in partnership with the Institute for Financial Integrity, and we are a DOLFIN partner for continuing education for compliance professionals.