Plenitude Consulting has marked what it terms a pivotal moment in its journey with minority investor Global Capital Partners (GCP) by acquiring Contineo Financial Risk Solutions, a specialist Financial Crime Compliance (FCC) technical and advisory services provider. The acquisition is aimed at strengthening Plenitude’s position as a tech advisor and implementation services provider for AI-enabled financial crime solutions and complements its market position as a specialist FCC consultancy.
Founded in 2017, Contineo offers specialist technical advisory services, including support for FCC technology selection and implementation, transaction monitoring, tuning customer and transaction screening models, optimisation and independent testing, model validation, and data analytics. Serving clients across the UK, US, Europe and UAE, Contineo’s expertise was a complement to Plenitude’s offerings, which target financial services participants across the UK, Germany, France, Nordics, the EU and Asia.The acquisition will enhance Plenitude’s specialist tech advisory and data analytics capabilities, supporting its ambition to be the preferred tech advisor and implementation partner for AI-powered FCC technology solutions. All of Contineo’s employees were retained, boosting Plenitude’s workforce by 20%.
Alan Paterson, founder and CEO of Plenitude, outlined the integration as follows: “Each Contineo employee will receive initial training on Plenitude values and behaviours and will be introduced to our behavioural learning catalogue alongside our wider training and development programme.”
Founded in 2012, Plenitude Consulting has steadily built its reputation for deep subject matter expertise in FCC. Plenitude provides advisory and transformation services augmented by subscription products to enhance insight into FCC laws, regulations, guidance, and risk indicators. The company provides services across the financial ecosystem, including investment, commercial and retail banks, asset managers, insurance companies, FinTechs, professional services and crypto firms.
Subscription products include Compass—Financial Crime Country Risk, Client Sight Online—Financial Crime Client Risk Rating, KYC, Client Due Diligence, and Reg Sight Online—Financial Crime Compliance Obligations Management. They also include regulatory horizon scanning, checking policy alignment with the latest regulations, and addressing any gaps.
In 2022, Plenitude Consulting was appointed to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) Skilled Persons Panel for Financial Crime, which confirmed Plenitude meets the FCA’s requirements for expertise across a range of regulatory topics, including financial crime, anti-money laundering, anti-bribery and corruption, sanctions, cryptocurrency and payments solutions, tax evasion, and market abuse (including insider dealing and market manipulation).
GCP, which specialises in creating investment partnerships with entrepreneurial growth companies, made a minority investment in Plenitude Consulting in July 2022. GCP tends to focus on minority or majority transactions with investments ranging between £10 million and £50 million in businesses valued between £25 million and £150 million.
GCP’s partnership with Plenitude is focused on strategic initiatives. In addition to funding for acquisitions and product development, GCP provided hands-on support to source and onboard senior hires, invested in people operations, and worked with the senior leadership team to evolve the organisational structure for accelerated growth.
Targeted growth areas included international expansion in Europe and Asia and the emerging digital assets market. Support was extended to invest in tooling and automation, evolve back-office systems, and drive improved reporting and strategic decision-making.
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