Minerva Case Study: Tetra Trust Company

Introduction

Tetra Trust Company, founded in 2019, is Canada’s first licensed digital asset custodian. With a mission to provide secure, enterprise-grade custody solutions for institutional clients, Tetra needed to implement rigorous AML (Anti-Money Laundering) compliance processes from day one. In the rapidly evolving digital asset space, Tetra faced unique compliance challenges that required a robust, scalable solution.

The Compliance Challenge in Digital Asset Custody

As a regulated digital asset custodian, Tetra needed to:

• Establish Scalable Processes: To support rapid growth, Tetra required compliance operations that could scale without significantly increasing resource demands.
• Reduce Manual Workloads: Tetra’s compliance team might spend excessive time on manual KYC checks and documentation, detracting from other high-value compliance tasks, such as investigative work.
• Ensure Investigative Depth and Accuracy: Thorough compliance checks were necessary to meet regulatory expectations and manage risks, but manual processes can be error-prone and inefficient.
• Adapt to Industry-Specific Risks: The digital asset space presents unique compliance challenges, such as rapidly evolving regulations and the need for specialized risk assessments.

How Minerva Transformed Tetra’s Compliance Operations

To address these challenges, Tetra implemented Minerva’s Investigations Platform, which provided:

• Comprehensive Data Coverage: Minerva’s platform searches across 4.5 billion data points, including sanctions lists, PEP databases, adverse media, and OSINT (Open-source intelligence), providing Tetra with a broad and deep view of potential risks.
• Accuracy and Reduced False Positives: Minerva is 99.8% accurate in entity matching and lowers false positives by up to 75% for most customers. This allows Tetra to focus on high-impact investigations without being overwhelmed by irrelevant flags.
• Easy-to-Use Customer Profiles: Minerva creates intuitive and comprehensive customer profiles that aggregate relevant risk data and risk scores, making it easy for Tetra’s compliance team to quickly assess and manage client risks.
• Streamlined Reporting: Minerva generates comprehensive reports, including full audit trails with screenshots, which simplifies compliance documentation and ensures thorough record-keeping.

Quantifiable Impact: Efficiency and Accuracy Gains

Minerva’s implementation at Tetra resulted in significant efficiency and accuracy improvements:

• Time Savings: Tetra estimates that manual KYC processes could take up to six hours per client. With Minerva, report generation takes only minutes, and review times range from 10 minutes to two hours, resulting in a 67-97% reduction in time spent.
• Enhanced Investigative Depth: Minerva’s platform catches risks that might be missed or easily overlooked with other tools because of the inclusion of broad data sources including open source intelligence.

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‍“Minerva quickly picks up data like legal cases that may take a while to find through traditional search engine queries.”

- Femina Dharshi, Chief Compliance Officer
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• Improved Scalability: Tetra can handle an increasing client base without proportionally increasing compliance resources, maintaining efficiency as the company grows.
• Faster Client Onboarding: The streamlined compliance process speeds up client onboarding, enhancing the overall customer experience.

“A big benefit: It makes the KYC process faster so clients can expect to hear back from us sooner.”

- Femina Dharshi, Chief Compliance Officer
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Why Tetra Chose Minerva: Key Benefits

Tetra chose Minerva for its advanced capabilities that go beyond traditional AML solutions:

• Speed and Efficiency: Minerva significantly speeds up investigations and KYC processes, enabling Tetra to scale efficiently while focusing on risk management over manual workflows.
• High Accuracy and Reduced False Positives: Minerva’s ability to accurately match entities and reduce false positives directly addresses Tetra’s need for thorough, precise compliance checks.
• Outstanding Customer Support: Tetra valued Minerva’s responsive customer service and the platform’s continuous improvement based on user feedback.

“The strong customer service that I received and my increased knowledge of the product solidified my decision to remain with Minerva.”

- Femina Dharshi, Chief Compliance Officer

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Conclusion

By implementing Minerva’s Investigations Platform from its inception, Tetra Trust Company established a robust, scalable AML compliance framework that supports their growth in the digital asset industry. The solution not only reduces the time and resources required for compliance but also enhances the depth and accuracy of their investigations.

This partnership illustrates how Minerva’s technology addresses real-world compliance challenges in emerging fields like digital asset custody, empowering companies like Tetra to stay ahead of regulatory demands.