A global delivery model for suspicious activity report investigations
Guidehouse helped a leading global fintech and payments firm scale SAR investigative capacity while maintaining regulatory compliance.
Summary
Facing an increasing volume of suspicious activity reports (SARs), a global fintech firm needed to scale its investigations program while preserving timely review, sound escalation processes, and strong narrative quality. Guidehouse delivered a globally integrated model with flexible staffing to optimize capacity, consistency, and regulatory alignment.
100+
FTEs supporting global SAR operations
95%+
average QA scores across investigations
100%
on-time SLA performance
Challenge
A leading global fintech and payments firm had been experiencing a significant increase in suspicious activity alerts. This placed pressure on its SAR investigations program to deliver timely, accurate, and defensible outcomes. The firm turned to Guidehouse for support with scaling its investigative capacity while maintaining consistent decisioning, reducing backlog risk, and ensuring alignment with regulatory expectations.
Approach
After assessing the client’s current-state operations, we developed and implemented a globally integrated SAR investigations solution. This included establishing a unified operating model with standardized procedures, structured quality assurance reviews, and targeted coaching loops to continuously improve investigative accuracy and consistency.
Teams across the United States and global delivery locations provided scalable investigative capacity, enabling consistent decisioning and high-quality SAR narratives across key alert types. Flexible staffing models allowed the firm to respond to fluctuations in alert volume while maintaining service levels. At the same time, the resulting reporting and operational insights helped support service-level agreement adherence and drove continuous throughput improvements.
Impact
Through this solution, the firm’s SAR investigations program has been able to meet increasing demands while achieving greater decisioning consistency and transparency across regions. It consistently delivered high-quality investigative outcomes, with QA scores exceeding 95%—reinforcing regulatory readiness and decisioning confidence. This improved throughput and review efficiency is supporting timely disposition of alerts even during sustained volume spikes.
Our work has strengthened program stability by reducing investigative bottlenecks and improving delivery predictability. As a result, the client has been handling alerts faster at reduced operational risk and has benefited from enhanced alignment with regulatory expectations.