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31st of July 2007- Dublin, Ireland: Norkom Technologies, the leading provider of financial crime and compliance software to the global financial services industry, has today announced the acquisition of US based Digital Harbor; a company whose solution set and domain expertise complements its own. The deal will expand Norkom’s client base, accelerate its global growth strategy and fast track Norkom’s stated objective to become the “gold standard” solution for financial crime and compliance globally.
Norkom’s client base now includes four of the world’s top 7 financial services institutions and more than 50 institutions in total. Digital Harbor brings leading tier one financial services institutions into the Norkom fold, which already includes HSBC, Credit Agricole, Rabobank, Bank of Montreal, DTCC and Western Union. In addition, strong partnership agreements with IBM and eFunds Corporation – the payments solutions company, will accelerate Norkom’s growth in a financial crime and compliance marketplace that’s expected to almost double in size to US$917million by 2010.
In addition to bolstering Norkom’s market share and growth the acquisition of Digital Harbor and the combined strength of the two companies’ solutions will accelerate delivery of Norkom’s strategic product roadmap enabling clients to benefit from a world class enterprise solution which will improve the quality and efficiency of financial crime investigation units while proactively reducing operational costs.
“Market research tells us that 73% of leading financial organizations are adopting or plan to adopt an enterprise wide approach to financial crime and compliance management across global geographies, product sets and channels,” says Norkom’s CEO Paul Kerley. “Digital Harbor has particular expertise in user interface design and enterprise wide case management, which complements our own skills in enterprise wide detection, profiling, investigation and process automation. This will allow us to fast track our delivery of best in class solutions and achieve our objective of becoming the industry’s gold standard”.
CEO of Digital Harbor, Brett Jackson, comments: “Norkom and Digital Harbor were among the first to recognize that organizations moving towards an enterprise wide approach would be challenged by their existing technology investments which, typically, support isolated business units and lack the ability to share information. Our two organizations have pursued common strategies, developing solutions that consolidate information from disparate systems to achieve an enterprise wide approach without significant technology re-investment. Our combined expertise and experience in this area gives companies a speedy and effective route to the benefits of enterprise financial crime and compliance management."
Norkom has acquired the total business of Digital Harbor for $36.5 million cash. Digital Harbor has 74 employees, who will now be part of Norkom. “The experience and domain expertise of Digital Harbor’s people is a perfect match for our own and will supplement our position as experts in the field,” says Kerley.
In 2007 Norkom was awarded ‘Best Technology Solution’ in Complinet’s annual compliance excellence awards while a survey of leading financial institutions across North America, Europe and Asia carried out by Operational Risk & Compliance, named Norkom as the world’s number one supplier of anti-fraud and anti-money laundering software solutions. The company’s leadership position was also confirmed by a comprehensive market report by international Research firm, Celent, which concluded that Norkom “outclassed its competitors.