Artwork for podcast Know Your Compliance (KYC)
Navigating FINTRAC Compliance: Exploring the Mission of ReallyTrusted
Episode 121st August 2024 • Know Your Compliance (KYC) • Greg Dent
00:00:00 00:25:06

Share Episode

Shownotes

In this premiere episode, host Greg Dent and special guest, Daniel Dent, introduce us to their company, ReallyTrusted, a Canadian technology provider with a mission to provide technologically under-served real estate professionals custom solutions that allow them to be more productive.  Listen in as they detail its history, vision, and commitment to compliance in the real estate industry. The conversation highlights the importance of FINTRAC compliance, emphasizing the need for education and understanding among realtors. They also address the challenges faced by compliance officers and the necessity for ongoing support and resources to maintain compliance.

Key Takeaways:

- The history and values of ReallyTrusted.

- Daniel’s technical background and role as CTO.

- The company's mission to simplify regulatory obligations for professionals.

- The significance of FINTRAC compliance for real estate agents.

- Upcoming episodes to include specific examples of suspicious transaction reports to explain the reporting process and outcomes.

- Continuous development of products and services in response to customer feedback to implement best practices for clients.

Connect with Greg and ReallyTrusted at:

https://reallytrusted.com/

https://www.facebook.com/ReallyTrusted/


Thanks for listening

Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page.

Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!

Subscribe to the podcast

If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app.

Leave us an Apple Podcasts review

Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.

Transcripts

Greg Dent:

Hello, and welcome to the very first edition of the No

Greg Dent:

your compliance podcast, otherwise known as the KYC

Greg Dent:

podcast. I am very excited for both people who are listening

Greg Dent:

today, I'm very excited for you to have picked our podcast to

Greg Dent:

listen to, and really happy for you if you didn't. My name is

Greg Dent:

Greg dent, I am your host here. And the founder of really

Greg Dent:

trusted and really trusted is the one bringing you this

Greg Dent:

podcast. And I am happy to be joined today by my co founder,

Greg Dent:

who happens to share my last name of all things. Daniel

Greg Dent:

Daniel Dennett, welcome to the show.

Daniel Dent:

Hey, good to be here.

Greg Dent:

So at the beginning of a podcast, it is customary to

Greg Dent:

do a bit of a biography of the guest. And I will, I've known

Greg Dent:

you for longer than anyone in the world, which should scare

Greg Dent:

you a bunch. But I'll be kind and give you a bit of a

Greg Dent:

professional biography today. So Daniel Dennett is the CTO of

Greg Dent:

really trusted he is the co founder of really trusted,

Greg Dent:

Daniel does all of the work on the tech side of things. And if

Greg Dent:

we think to his background prior to that, and we've been at this

Greg Dent:

for six and a bit years now, actually almost six years to the

Greg Dent:

day, and as I think about that, so not six and a bit, six years,

Greg Dent:

almost to the day. The prior to that Daniel has always been

Greg Dent:

geek, and has gotten deep into all sorts of technical things,

Greg Dent:

email marketing, network management, website, hosting,

Greg Dent:

you name it, his life has been in front of computers. And so he

Greg Dent:

is the perfect person to be the CTO of a company where I can

Greg Dent:

create problems that he then has to find technical solutions to

Greg Dent:

so Daniel, with that introduction, welcome to the show.

Daniel Dent:

Thank you. Great to be here.

Greg Dent:

I wanted to do our first episode about the history

Greg Dent:

of really trusted and the who really trusted is and the why

Greg Dent:

really trusted is because people who are going to be listening to

Greg Dent:

this podcast, I hope, are going to be compliance nerds, just

Greg Dent:

like us who phones ring with the 24 theme song, in case people

Greg Dent:

missed it. And, and that's okay. But my really truly my hope for

Greg Dent:

the audience of this show is that it's gonna be a bunch of

Greg Dent:

compliance nerds, people who really kind of want to get into

Greg Dent:

the weeds on anti money laundering. And the similar

Greg Dent:

topics we're going to be discussing are really into the

Greg Dent:

weeds of of you, no adverse media, sees the assets, the pros

Greg Dent:

and cons of watch lists, like topics that are pretty AML

Greg Dent:

specific. And we'll go pretty deep on some of those. But I

Greg Dent:

think it'd be helpful for our audience to understand where

Greg Dent:

we're coming from as a company and why we're interested in this

Greg Dent:

topic. So we thought of that I thought I'd asked you to kind of

Greg Dent:

give us a two to three minute version of the history of, of

Greg Dent:

what really trusted is who we are and what we're doing out

Greg Dent:

there.

Daniel Dent:

Yeah, that's a great question. I'm going to

Daniel Dent:

start by talking about the name because I think the name

Daniel Dent:

actually talks about who we are as company and how we got

Daniel Dent:

started. really trust it. Why is that word trust in there. And it

Daniel Dent:

comes from when the real estate industry lost public confidence

Daniel Dent:

in British Columbia government stepped in and said, You guys

Daniel Dent:

are not doing a good enough job of regulating yourself. We're

Daniel Dent:

taking over? Yep. And as part of that process, they introduced a

Daniel Dent:

bunch of disclosure and paperwork requirements. And we

Daniel Dent:

were chatting one day, you've been a successful busy agent for

Daniel Dent:

some time now. And there's the conversation. I remember you

Daniel Dent:

having with me before it happens, saying, What are they

Daniel Dent:

doing? This is going to introduce so much friction? How

Daniel Dent:

am I gonna do business? Yep.

Daniel Dent:

That was kind of where it started with a single forum

Daniel Dent:

where it's like, I need to be able to fill out this form.

Daniel Dent:

Before I can talk to a customer. That is a major point of

Daniel Dent:

friction for me. And how can we make this easier? And, you know,

Daniel Dent:

that's at the core of our company in a lot of different

Daniel Dent:

ways. Because we are agent focused, we're starting from the

Daniel Dent:

perspective of the customer, you know, you were our first

Daniel Dent:

customer, right? Then it was your team, you know that it was

Daniel Dent:

people at your brokerage people, people in our sphere that we

Daniel Dent:

knew. But, you know, going back back to that initial thing about

Daniel Dent:

the loss of trust. What the government forced down

Daniel Dent:

everybody's throats, whether they wanted it or not, was the

Daniel Dent:

beginning of the process of creating processes that create

Daniel Dent:

accountability and that allow the public, the consumer to

Daniel Dent:

start to have confidence that everything is on the up and up.

Daniel Dent:

And I'm speaking in a really broad terms here. But that

Daniel Dent:

foundationally, I think speaks to kind of how we got where we

Daniel Dent:

are today.

Greg Dent:

Right, so if I could distil that, I think that's

Greg Dent:

probably a pretty good explanation, in fact, of why the

Greg Dent:

name and what we generally believe. And I think if I could

Greg Dent:

tease out a few of those, and there, some of these are in our

Greg Dent:

mission statement, and our vision, and our and our core

Greg Dent:

values for that matter, depending on which of the points

Greg Dent:

I'm making here, but conceptually around, making it

Greg Dent:

easier for professionals to fulfil their regulatory

Greg Dent:

obligations has been a really one of the foundational

Greg Dent:

principles for us. But doing that in a customer centric way.

Greg Dent:

And by the way, that's actually the mission statement of really

Greg Dent:

trusted is to make it easier for professionals to fulfil their

Greg Dent:

regulatory obligations. I think we've got the words underserved,

Greg Dent:

under technologically underserved professionals, but

Greg Dent:

conceptually anyhow. But doing it in a customer centric way.

Greg Dent:

And that's actually one of our core values is making sure that

Greg Dent:

all of our stuff is customer centric. And, and honesty is

Greg Dent:

also one of those core values. And that comes back to the trust

Greg Dent:

and making sure that we're establishing a we're helping

Greg Dent:

professionals establish a trustful relationship, or

Greg Dent:

trusting relationship with their clients, and creating in in our

Greg Dent:

case of regulatory or helping them with their regulatory only

Greg Dent:

required obligations, but doing it so that it's easier for them

Greg Dent:

to do that. I think if I were to distil it all. So that kind of

Greg Dent:

what you were saying there. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that makes

Greg Dent:

sense. So that certainly speaks to the foundation of the company

Greg Dent:

and the the, the underpinnings and the core values. I touched

Greg Dent:

on a little bit there. What I think in my next question, you

Greg Dent:

might be able to unpack one of the other core values, I'll see

Greg Dent:

if you can get there. But what do we do today? And how did we

Greg Dent:

get to there? And why did we get to there?

Daniel Dent:

Oh, so I mean, these days, were all about anti

Daniel Dent:

money laundering. And, I mean, really, we got there from

Daniel Dent:

talking to our customers from recognising that actually, the

Daniel Dent:

disclosure forms that we started out dealing with were a small

Daniel Dent:

problem, compared to their all of their anti money laundering

Daniel Dent:

obligations, which, when we started, I'm not sure if anybody

Daniel Dent:

in the industry was really paying attention to those

Daniel Dent:

obligations. There was a yeah, maybe there were some people, if

Daniel Dent:

so, I don't think we ever ran into.

Greg Dent:

There's an argument that some people still aren't

Greg Dent:

within the real estate industry. But that's a whole other

Greg Dent:

conversation. I'll hold the episode. I've got a whole

Greg Dent:

episode on that.

Daniel Dent:

But, you know, what, when we started, the

Daniel Dent:

conversation was, hey, build this out, to take the

Daniel Dent:

information on the driver's licence and stamp it on a floor?

Daniel Dent:

And that's it. Yeah. And if you do anything more than that,

Daniel Dent:

you're complicating our lives.

Greg Dent:

And if you ask a real estate agent, in some cases

Greg Dent:

today, still, I'd like to think not at the brokerages we serve,

Greg Dent:

but some other brokerages, if you ask them what FINTRAC is,

Greg Dent:

they'll see it as that form that they have to fill out with the

Greg Dent:

ID information, which is such a, a lack of clarity of the

Greg Dent:

importance of the whole thing that it's it's almost funny to

Greg Dent:

me now. But sadly, it is still the belief that many, many in

Greg Dent:

the real estate industry have at this point, I think the the core

Greg Dent:

value I was hoping you'd get to was thoughtful leadership. And,

Greg Dent:

and you touched on it, but I kind of I'll put it out there

Greg Dent:

and let you kind of expand on a little bit from there.

Daniel Dent:

So we've had and as you say, still have a lot of

Daniel Dent:

customers were the way the thing that brought them to the app was

Daniel Dent:

it makes their life easier. And what we've been able to do with

Daniel Dent:

that is say yes, anytime we can, we're going to make your life

Daniel Dent:

easier. And we're especially going to try to design the app

Daniel Dent:

in a way that makes it easier for you to do the right thing

Daniel Dent:

and it makes it easier for us to lead you down the path towards

Daniel Dent:

regulatory compliance.

Greg Dent:

You So what I really want to touch on there, and you

Greg Dent:

said it, but I want to be really explicit about what you said.

Greg Dent:

And because I think it's super important is that we do want to

Greg Dent:

make it easier for people to do their jobs. But we also want to

Greg Dent:

put them into a position where they're better able to comply

Greg Dent:

and fulfil their obligations in a way that puts the what's the

Greg Dent:

whole industry, or at least the ones using our services in a

Greg Dent:

position where they're actually fulfilling their obligations in

Greg Dent:

a more real way? Is that, is that a reasonable reframe of

Greg Dent:

what you're trying to say there?

Daniel Dent:

Yeah, absolutely.

Greg Dent:

I want to I want to belabour that point for a

Greg Dent:

second. Because ultimately, one of the things that I keep

Greg Dent:

saying, certainly internally and really, externally, if anybody

Greg Dent:

will listen to me, is that FINTRAC isn't about filling out

Greg Dent:

forms. And anybody who thinks that you can be a compliant

Greg Dent:

programme, just by filling out the form, just hasn't understood

Greg Dent:

their obligations. And we've, as a company have done a tonne of I

Greg Dent:

feel like a tonne of education and webinars and conversations

Greg Dent:

about that topic. And sometimes people get it. But sometimes I

Greg Dent:

feel like I'm screaming into the wind on that one.

Daniel Dent:

Yeah, but I'd also say that the conversation has

Daniel Dent:

shifted rapidly in the last six months, especially.

Greg Dent:

I would say it's been about a year, but yeah, I think

Greg Dent:

And thank goodness for that. Actually. Yeah, you're right.

Greg Dent:

It's maybe more than six months. But yeah, thank thank goodness,

Greg Dent:

I would say to knowing what I know today, and understanding

Greg Dent:

the importance of it, I am going to have a bunch any any realtor

Greg Dent:

who is listening up to this point is probably about to turn

Greg Dent:

it off. When I say knowing and understanding the importance of

Greg Dent:

FINTRAC. That's that's the Okay, I'm done with that podcast

Greg Dent:

message right there. But bear with me for a second here.

Greg Dent:

Because I actually do think there's, there's a case here

Greg Dent:

that I think is important for everybody to hear, which is that

Greg Dent:

it's really important for for our society, it's really

Greg Dent:

important for our businesses, it's really important for in my

Greg Dent:

case, for me personally, my ethical beliefs, that we do this

Greg Dent:

properly. And all of those things to me, all three of those

Greg Dent:

things are valid reasons to to make FINTRAC I don't think it

Greg Dent:

has to be a priority. You're a realtor, your priority should be

Greg Dent:

to sell houses. Let's be very clear about that. But I do think

Greg Dent:

it, you do, I have a hard time believing that, based on all

Greg Dent:

three of those things you wouldn't, as a realtor want to

Greg Dent:

at least do a good job of your FINTRAC obligations. Does that.

Greg Dent:

does that jive?

Daniel Dent:

Yeah, it does. You know, I think there's something

Daniel Dent:

you're touching on there that is really hard for most people to

Daniel Dent:

see unless they spend a tonne of time digging into things, which

Daniel Dent:

is that they're part of a machine. They're a cog in even

Daniel Dent:

very large machine. And the consequences of doing a process

Daniel Dent:

in an effective way that leads to suspicious transaction

Daniel Dent:

reports being filed. That leads to people choosing not to even

Daniel Dent:

try to do transactions because they know that if they were to

Daniel Dent:

try to it would not lead to a result they want. These are

Daniel Dent:

things that have downstream impacts that are completely

Daniel Dent:

invisible to us. Yeah. Occasionally, we have like

Daniel Dent:

little windows, but most of it, either because law enforcement

Daniel Dent:

to protect their case doesn't want to share because they're

Daniel Dent:

still building the case, or because there's a case that

Daniel Dent:

never happens. There's there's people who are not getting

Daniel Dent:

trafficked as a result of these processes. There are people that

Daniel Dent:

are not losing their homes, there are people that are not

Daniel Dent:

getting extorted or where the extortion is ending. There's all

Daniel Dent:

these things which are like horrific prices versus society

Daniel Dent:

that we don't like to look at too closely. But that happen,

Daniel Dent:

that are being prevented by the simple act of a This is weird.

Daniel Dent:

I'm gonna fill out this one. Well,

Greg Dent:

that is the perfect segue. I could not have asked

Greg Dent:

for a more perfect segue, in fact, into a bit of a teaser and

Greg Dent:

you know, in podcast world and in any sort of performance that

Greg Dent:

you're supposed to have teasers, right, so, here that is the

Greg Dent:

perfect teaser for a bunch of upcoming episodes where at least

Greg Dent:

two of the episodes where I can think of conversations I've had

Greg Dent:

or will be having, where we go through exact actual real life

Greg Dent:

examples of suspicious transaction reports that were

Greg Dent:

filed. And and all with the repercussions of those

Greg Dent:

suspicious transaction reports that were filed. So stay tuned.

Greg Dent:

And, and I think you're absolutely right. It is one of

Greg Dent:

the question Since I continually hear from real estate agents

Greg Dent:

when and it from from compliance officers within the real estate

Greg Dent:

sector as well, honestly. So what we send on all of these

Greg Dent:

reports, and what is the end result? And on this show, I'm

Greg Dent:

going to try and unpack a little bit of that in some of our

Greg Dent:

episodes, because it is a question that I know people have

Greg Dent:

so, so do come back. If you're, if you're still listening to us

Greg Dent:

15 minutes into this first episode. And you're still here,

Greg Dent:

I think you'll probably come back. But if for no other

Greg Dent:

reason, I'm giving you a reason. Now. We will be talking about

Greg Dent:

some really specific stuff. I have examples that I think will

Greg Dent:

be helpful. So what else? What else do you think people will

Greg Dent:

need to know about about either really trusted and or the the

Greg Dent:

KYC? podcast as as we kind of roll this out? And while people

Greg Dent:

talk about and invite people to come have conversations about

Greg Dent:

compliance and at the moneylender?

Daniel Dent:

That's a great question. You know, I think one

Daniel Dent:

of the other things that we really try hard as a company to

Daniel Dent:

do is we try to have that close relationship with our customers,

Daniel Dent:

you know, you were the original user of our app. And that made

Daniel Dent:

it a lot easier for us to have that be part of that process.

Daniel Dent:

Because the real estate industry, the nature of it is

Daniel Dent:

that agents tend to know each other and build those

Daniel Dent:

relationships over time. And I think as we've grown, that's

Daniel Dent:

something that we're really cognizant of, and our entire

Daniel Dent:

product development process, it doesn't matter what industry

Daniel Dent:

we're talking about, we're always making a point of doing

Daniel Dent:

our best to be part of the conversation to be solving

Daniel Dent:

things, both from the perspective of the regulator,

Daniel Dent:

and kind of what is the actual legislation here? What's the

Daniel Dent:

public policy purpose? And then also, from the perspective of,

Daniel Dent:

Okay, what does that look like for the person on the ground.

Daniel Dent:

And I think we've got a unique perspective, in a lot of cases,

Daniel Dent:

where, you know, we've seen regulations change coming down

Daniel Dent:

the pipe, where, because of our connection to the professionals

Daniel Dent:

that are actually dealing with the public that are performing

Daniel Dent:

the service. Sometimes we've ended up seeing things that

Daniel Dent:

aren't even necessarily obvious to the regulator. And so that's,

Daniel Dent:

I think, an important part of who we are as a company and

Daniel Dent:

something that we strive to continue to lean into. Yeah,

Greg Dent:

that's an interesting point, for sure. I think. I

Greg Dent:

mean, when I think about the products that we've launched in

Greg Dent:

the last couple of years, ignoring the app, and certainly

Greg Dent:

the app has been led by that, but the the other products,

Greg Dent:

we've developed the RT Academy platform, the RT manuals,

Greg Dent:

platform, and ultimately rolling that all up into FINTRAC.

Greg Dent:

Express. All of those were very much in response to this need

Greg Dent:

that we saw from compliance officers, that Canadian real

Greg Dent:

estate brokerage is through conversation after conversation,

Greg Dent:

where it became clear that they wanted to comply. And that's,

Greg Dent:

that has been the message I heard the most. But for the most

Greg Dent:

part, they don't know how, and that's, you know, I think that's

Greg Dent:

encouraging, but also really an important part of our fabric and

Greg Dent:

who we are kind of thing.

Daniel Dent:

And, you know, it makes sense that they don't know

Daniel Dent:

how it really does like these regulations, if you look at how

Daniel Dent:

they started and kind of where they started. They started from

Daniel Dent:

the assumption of big conglomerate businesses, you

Daniel Dent:

know, big six banks, companies that have the resources to

Daniel Dent:

dedicate teams keys to these processes.

Greg Dent:

Well, I don't know if you've been watching the FINTRAC

Greg Dent:

fines lately, but those big banks haven't been doing all

Greg Dent:

that well, either at these big processes.

Daniel Dent:

Yeah, no, it's true. And that speaks to how

Daniel Dent:

challenging it is. I mean, we've got an entire company here of

Daniel Dent:

people that do this day in, day out, and it keeps us busy. And

Daniel Dent:

that is all we're doing is making sure that we do our best

Daniel Dent:

to understand all of this and build products in accordance

Daniel Dent:

with that for a small business, which is most real estate

Daniel Dent:

brokers, which is most mortgage brokers, which is like

Greg Dent:

99% of them, if not 99.9% of them. Yeah,

Daniel Dent:

yeah. Yeah. Like, even if they can afford to hire

Daniel Dent:

somebody whose full time job it is to do this, which let's be

Daniel Dent:

clear, they can't that's just not that's not gonna work

Daniel Dent:

financially. But, but even if they could, for that one person

Daniel Dent:

to then go out and put in an effective compliance programme.

Daniel Dent:

You still a challenge. And I think the fact that we're

Daniel Dent:

fundamentally allowing the industry to pool its resources,

Daniel Dent:

because a it's in a very indirect way, but you know, we

Daniel Dent:

have a whole bunch of different like we have over 500 brokerages

Daniel Dent:

using our software now, right? Oh,

Greg Dent:

we're probably into the seven or eight at this

Greg Dent:

point, actually. But yes, yeah, yeah.

Daniel Dent:

So there's, there's leverage that all of our

Daniel Dent:

customers get from the fact that, you know, we're serving

Daniel Dent:

all those customers, we don't just have to recoup that

Daniel Dent:

investment with 10 agents, we can do that over 10s of 1000s.

Daniel Dent:

of agents, right. Yeah.

Greg Dent:

No, that makes sense. And I know that makes sense to

Greg Dent:

me. And I think that's kind of the what we've certainly tried

Greg Dent:

to do is to bring the best practice. But, again, if I were

Greg Dent:

to dilute what you've just said, it's we're bringing the best

Greg Dent:

practices to all of our customers, because we have

Greg Dent:

access to all of our customers.

Daniel Dent:

Yeah, yeah. You know, we've definitely seen

Daniel Dent:

situations where somebody's like, hey, I want to do this

Daniel Dent:

thing. And we're like, whoo, we've seen somebody do this

Daniel Dent:

thing. Here's why you don't want to do that this day. And they,

Daniel Dent:

they don't need to know who did that. They don't need, like, the

Daniel Dent:

fact that we can just give them reasons why it's a bad idea, or

Daniel Dent:

why something's a good idea. You know, there's both the best

Daniel Dent:

practices can cross pollinate within the industry. And I think

Daniel Dent:

that leads to a result that is good for everybody.

Greg Dent:

Yeah, no, that makes sense. Absolutely. Okay, well,

Greg Dent:

we don't have much time left. Is there any parting things that

Greg Dent:

you wanted to make sure that you had said before we before we

Greg Dent:

wrap this episode of The No, your compliance podcast?

Daniel Dent:

You know, I think just like, as you said, at the

Daniel Dent:

beginning, where six years in, I have a lot of gratitude for our

Daniel Dent:

customers. And I think it's important to share that, you

Daniel Dent:

know, we, it is unusual, to see some of the messages that we get

Daniel Dent:

of like, thanks and appreciation for what we do. And, you know, I

Daniel Dent:

just want to, to really, really tell people what a difference it

Daniel Dent:

makes. You know, we're a small company. We're a small team, and

Daniel Dent:

it's nice to be serving customers that appreciate us.

Greg Dent:

Yeah, I would echo that statement. So for both of

Greg Dent:

you who are still listening at this point in the episode, thank

Greg Dent:

you very much, both for your support of this show and for

Greg Dent:

your support have really trusted. I can think of no

Greg Dent:

better way to end episode number one of the KYC podcast. Thank

Greg Dent:

you very much for joining us today, Daniel.

Daniel Dent:

Looking forward to being back at some point, I'm

Daniel Dent:

sure.

Greg Dent:

I would imagine so I can't get readyrid of you yet.

Daniel Dent:

Yeah, that's how it goes

Links

Chapters

Video

More from YouTube