Our Investment in Lacuna Solutions

Riverside Acceleration Capital (RAC) is thrilled to announce our recent investment in Lacuna Solutions, a London-based company developing software to help financial institutions reduce risk and direct global money flows for safer, more compliant, and more efficient payment processing.

The company’s flagship product, BankCheck, provides banks and other regulated financial institutions with a global database of over 26 million financial institutions to help streamline compliance and improve payment processing.

The global banking system is complex, ever changing, and heavily regulated. Banks needing to interact with others around the world face the operational challenges of capturing complete and accurate data for payments, maintaining correct and up-to-date routing codes, and meeting regulatory requirements around Know Your Customer (KYC) sanctions, crime, and fraud. When payments fail because of wrong or outdated information, this can be expensive and slow to rectify, and the risk of moving money to or on behalf of sanctioned banks is significant and increasing.  

Traditionally, these institutions have relied on manual and labor-intensive methods to conduct KYC checks and correct failed payments, involving extensive paperwork and time-consuming reviews, low straight-through processing rates in payments, and a sometimes-frustrating experience for their customers. This approach is not only resource-intensive but also prone to human errors and delays, leading to inefficiencies in the onboarding and payment processes.  

BankCheck provides data services that allow financial institutions to not only manage routing details and comply with KYC regulations, but also better manage risk related to sanctions, financial crime, and fraud. BankCheck helps reduce the occurrence of failed transactions and equips payment repair teams with the necessary resources and data to swiftly address any issues that may arise, enabling quick payment processing. By leveraging these services, banks can improve payment processing and ensure a greater level of operational efficiency.

The platform provides financial institutions with real-time access to a comprehensive knowledge graph of KYC and payments information for the global banking industry. The dataset comprises over 320 million legal entities, cross-checked against authoritative sources and enriched with information on sanctioned, watch-listed, and politically exposed persons. The software is used by major banks around the world, including HSBC, Royal Bank of Canada, Santander, and BNP Paribas, as well as US government agencies monitoring sanctions compliance and tracing illicit funds.

We’ve been continually impressed with the team and are excited to partner with Lacuna Solutions as they seek to revolutionize KYC checks. The funding will be primarily devoted to growth as the company ramps up sales and marketing.

In a press release announcing the funding, Lacuna Solutions CEO Richard Brown added: "Interest in our BankCheck solution is on the rise as the landscape of compliance and regulation continues to change. With this funding, we look forward to being able to implement our growth strategy and meet increasing demand for reliable institutional KYC and due diligence."

To learn more about Lacuna Solutions, visit www.lacunasolutions.co.uk.