TruNarrative offers compliance automation

TruNarrative aims to make regulatory failings history with its smart platform and tailored approach, says Head of Gaming Adam Doyle

The millions of pounds in fines imposed on operators by Britain’s Gambling Commission in the past year is a stark reminder of the need to place regulatory compliance at the centre of your go to market strategies.

TruNarrative, a global risk, fraud, and identity platform, entered the gaming space in 2019 led by Adam Doyle , a ten-year veteran of delivering compliance technology solutions to the gaming industry.

“We are driven by regulated markets,” says Doyle. “We work with gambling operators helping them to align to regulation and remove friction for their players and their back-office team. Our aim is to automate regulatory compliance processes for operators. We help with player onboarding and continuous monitoring, delivering operators the tools they need to flag players that may be betting beyond their means.”

TruNarrative uses a unified single API and has more than 50 third-party suppliers integrated with its platform. This helps operators to align with onboarding requirements and to continuously monitor play patterns for player protection and affordability monitoring.

If operators are faced with changes in regulations or they want to expand into a new market, TruNarrative’s system - which uses natural language rather than technical code – permits the operator to easily align to the changes within hours rather than relying on in-house technical resources, which can take far longer.

“We’ve helped operators by giving them multiple solutions via a single API. Enabling them to keep pace with current market conditions or changes to regulation. We have helped them to quickly get to market by reducing the need for extensive technical resources,” Doyle explains. “We sit down with our operators to work out their roadmap over the next 24 months and then help them achieve that.”

TruNarrative’s solution is integrated with Playtech’s IMS platform, enabling customers to accurately and identify players whose gambling spend may be unsustainable.

“We offer a bespoke system. We don’t sell a black box. Once we work out what their requirements are internally and externally, we can start to work with them. It is solely about the client’s needs. They can work with us as much or as little as they want,” says Doyle.

“Our role is to automate and orchestrate the player on boarding and monitoring journey, reducing the manual work for the operator. We offer them multiple solutions as we know one supplier isn’t the answer. If you look at affordability, we do this by looking at a number of datapoints to determine an affordability score. For example, on registration where risk is lower, operators can choose to perform light touch measures. When a player spends over £500 in a short space of time they can choose to flag to this to a team member or trigger a player protection intervention. We deliver operators the technology to use the right tools at the right time, protecting players without compromising their experience.”

The company attributes its success to the uniqueness of its solution in the market. Gambling operators use a variety of systems to adhere to regulatory requirements, in areas such as identity verification, anti-money laundering, transaction monitoring and affordability.

“Pre-TruNarrative, operators would have to contract with multiple suppliers each offering one of these systems, then code the monitoring and decisioning architecture themselves. What we have done is brought everything into one place.”

After successfully entering the financial services, gaming, cryptocurrency, and ecommerce sectors, TruNarrative was acquired by LexisNexis Risk Solutions in August 2021 “The acquisition is great for the development of the TruNarrative Platform, and the operators we work with. It means we now have a lot more data points we can deliver to our existing clients, and expand into new markets.”

Doyle believes the changing landscape of the gaming industry has solidified TruNarrative’s position: “Gone are the days where operators were trying to go it alone and build everything themselves, and sometimes fall on the wrong side of regulators. Now it is all about collaboration between regulators, operators, and technology suppliers with the goal of protecting players and ensuring regulations are followed.

“Compared to other industries TruNarrative works with, the gaming industry is still a very young market. It only really started in its current form in the early 2000’s. Due to constant advances in technology, it has been made easier and more common to place bets online, with zero face to face interaction,” Doyle adds. “As an industry, we have to continue to keep pace with player preferences and advancements in tech and changes to regulation. We enable operators to protect those who are potentially vulnerable and help deliver the majority of players an enjoyable low friction experience.”

Currently regulatory compliance is consuming more and more of operators resources and this is set to continue. Operators are looking to implement adaptable technologies to prepare them for future regulatory changes.

“Some regulation you will be able to deal with manually but when it gets to a certain point you need the technology. A lot of the fines that have been issued are because things have slipped through gaps in a manual process. Operators have to deal with significant volumes of deposits, bets and withdrawals – this is a lot of data and it’s difficult to monitor. We understand operators’ requirements so we can automate process in the background and keep comprehensive audit trails. This helps stop instances of vulnerable players falling through those gaps,” concludes Doyle.

This sponsored editorial was first published in the April issue of GIQ magazine.