Shahannah Abdoolakhan – Compliance at heart

As CEO of Abler Consulting, Shahannah Abdoolakhan is challenging assumptions in a traditionally male sphere. She is a renowned figure in the compliance sector, with numerous companies paying tribute to her expertise.

Drawing over fifteen years of work experience in the financial services sector in Mauritius and Guernsey combined, she happens to be a Fellow Chartered Certified Accountant and holds an MBA from the Oxford Brookes University, UK, with Islamic Finance Qualifications from the CISI, UK.

Shahannah Abdoolakhan started her career with the Financial Services Commission (FSC) Mauritius in 2003 before joining Deutsche Bank in Mauritius. She also had the opportunity to work at Northern Trust Bank, in Guernsey. “This was career-defining for me professionally, witnessing first-hand the global challenges which ushered in a new era, exposing the financial services industry to greater scrutiny with the implementation of new rules and regulations,” she says. Over the course of her career, she has witnessed the rapid evolution of the compliance function, which has now integrated the organisational structure of numerous companies. Compliance, Shahannah Abdoolakhan highlights, “is not only an institution’s ‘guardian’, but also an essential component to remain at par in the industry.

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Shahannah’s decision to set up Abler Consulting derives from a common misconception regarding compliance while working with different partners on various projects. “There’s an erroneous, and often costly, assumption, that compliance officers and staff in general are the least concerned about the profitability of a business. However, compliance is a direct component of the sustainability of a business,” the CEO declares. Explaining what compliance is in layman’s terms, Shahannah Abdoolakhan opt for the football metaphor: “If I was to illustrate this in footballing terms, which is quite in fashion these days, I’d say that you can have Ronaldo, Messi and Mbappé in one team, but unless you have a great goalkeeper who often happens to be the unsung hero of the team, you cannot dream of winning a game. The role of compliance is exactly that of a goal keeper or rather a gatekeeper against financial crimes.” In fact, companies should be aware of the growing risks posed by money laundering and terrorism financing and how they should set up appropriate firewalls to keep the bad guys out to avoid being sanctioned by regulators.

Companies have already been tackling regulatory and compliance issues for years and offering software solutions well before the term Regulatory Technology (also known as RegTech) was coined. In setting up Abler Consulting, Shahannah was guided by RegTech to help her focus attention on this area since it is a technology-based solution designed to help companies to meet their regulatory obligations. It is designed to help firms to grow and improve their performance by addressing compliance, money laundering and terrorism-financing risks, and to manage the risks posed by customer relationships, amongst others.

A range of solutions

Abler is the only independent “boutique firm” dedicated to and specialised in compliance through its international partner CDDS Luxembourg SA. Companies will increasingly have to comply with the most stringent AML/CTF rules. “To accompany our clients at every stage of their due diligence process, we have tailored a range of solutions adapted to each business needs. For example, our AMLspotter solution integrates thirdparty screening, risk assessment and ongoing monitoring into an all-in-one tool. With AMLspotter, a company runs a real-time daily assessment of risk; so they are 100% compliant with their AML/ CFT requirements at all times,” she explains.

Abler Consulting’s initial role is to help companies “navigate their Compliance Journey with ease and comfort” by creating awareness of how an organization should “live and breathe compliance.” Shahannah Abdoolakhan also assists companies seeking to set up offices in Mauritius or in choosing a jurisdiction that would be the best suited for their projects. Abler Consulting has partners across multiple jurisdictions and offers cross-jurisdictional support to its clients.

Over the recent past, the successful milestones registered by Abler Consulting have undoubtedly been compliance and regulatory consultancy work undertaken for a private bank – from set-up to operations – and promoting the Mauritian financial services sector to a reputable group of foreign investors who eventually set up an Offshore Management Company. Being almost an industry in itself, regu - lation keeps on evolving every year and almost all businesses around the world are coming under the regulatory radar.

In line with the everchanging laws, rules and regulations, companies must be equipped with ef - fective, robust and reliable compliance tools to be in a better position to assess and mitigate risks that clients may be exposed to. However, a number of companies still see com - pliance as a financial liabili - ty. “What they are not evaluating instead, is the cost of non-compliance which can actually be the death knell for a business. In fact, the cost of non-compliance often exceeds that of invested in compliance. There is no room for complacency and certainly no trade-off,” highlights Sha - hannah Abdoolakhan. In today’s global world, com - panies can no longer fore - go compliance since the penalties associated with non-compliance risks can verily damage an entire organization and be fatal to its reputation.

As a matter of fact, an increasing number of re - gulated companies reach out to Abler Consulting to conduct independent com - pliance audits, to review their existing policies, to put new procedures in place, while keeping up with control updates and checklists to ensure risk mitigation procedures are complied with. She has no doubt developed an exper - tise in these areas and has enabled numerous companies to strive in the financial sector.