To give a great example about how FINTRAC could leverage technology, I would talk about their other role, which is the role of generating financial intelligence and sharing it with law enforcement in order to support investigations, or to start investigations, linked to money laundering or other financial crimes. They receive over 65 million reports of financial transactions from banks throughout a year. Right now, they don't have the analytical tools and capabilities to really deal with all of that. A lot of their processes of identifying whether transactions are by the same person or business, or whether they are suspicious transactions, are done manually.
This is a great place where technology could help leverage efficiencies. It takes about four months, on average, to generate financial intelligence for a law enforcement agency when they're looking for assistance. In a day and age when financial transactions happen very quickly, waiting four months for financial intelligence is not an effective way to discharge responsibilities.