Compliance and Due Diligence
$7+ Billion
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The U.S. Patriot Act came quickly on the heels of September 11, 2001. The law introduced sweeping financial regulations. For the first time, banks and other financial institutions doing business in the U.S. were responsible for detecting money laundering, terrorist financing, and fraud with zero room for error. New levels of due diligence meant enormous amounts of data had to be collected, stored, and made searchable if there was any hope of compliance.
Companies like our client, an analytics powerhouse, were ready to help. They made it their mission to aggregate all the right data, making it available to banks and other institutions so they could “know their customers” and screen for bad actors. But there were problems. One of the biggest was how to clean and validate the details they were adding to databases. Someone had to go through everything and decide which revealed a risk and which did not.
To do that, the client needed a partner. Ideally, one in a more cost-effective labor market. But a market that also enjoyed a talented, conscientious workforce.
We were invited to bid for the work. Matt Kochan, a co-founder of the still-new SEBPO, along with Bangladeshi businessman A.S.M. Mohiuddin Monem, brought decades of experience running global services for Fortune 500 brands. Back then, SEBPO had just six employees in Bangladesh. But Matt knew that winning the work could explode their growth.
He also knew the work was of such complexity and scope that—to earn the business—they’d need a secret weapon. Enter today’s CEO, Kevin Kochan, who dove deep into the client’s business, the regulatory requirements, and the intricate operating details necessary for SEBPO to meet those demands. That opportunity, and how Matt, Kevin, and the whole SEBPO Team responded to it in those first months and years, laid the foundation for much of our future success.
What do we do for the client? Mostly three things over the years:
Without the work of our data analysts, the client’s financial institution customers would be unable to meet their risk-vetting and due diligence requirements.
Recently, this client needed a solution for cost-effectively processing Spanish content, so they approached us to see if our team in Bangladesh could handle the Spanish article work. Although our Bangladesh team members do not speak or write Spanish, we didn’t let that stop us. We immediately began processing the articles using Google Translate, and the quality of work was well-received. Impressed with these results, the client later expanded the scope to include German, Portuguese, Dutch, and French articles, as well. As of today, our Bangladesh team is processing content in five different languages—Spanish, German, Portuguese, Dutch, and French—in addition to English.
We currently have three members dedicated to this multilingual work. Considering our total team size of 343 people, this may seem small, but the impact of this team on the client’s overall operations has been significant. They are highly satisfied with the quality of our output, even though the productivity levels are understandably lower due to the language barrier. Today, approximately 343 team members are performing this work, with the number fluctuating based on need. Over 95% of our tasks for the client come from just two teams (which the client acquired in 2020), and we’ve been supporting them as a whole since 2008. Our team continues to evolve nimbly with the growing business, while maintaining the same consistency that defined our early partnership.
We verify and validate customer identities through background checks, document authentication, name-matching reviews, and PEP screening. These services give clients confidence that every customer relationship begins with a foundation of trust, transparency, and regulatory compliance.
We design and integrate automated compliance solutions—developing APIs, validating data quality, and implementing Know-Your-Customer (KYC) workflows. These automated processes streamline operations, improve accuracy, and reduce manual effort, helping clients maintain compliance at scale.
We provide continuous oversight through anti-bribery and AML screening, monitored list reviews, and transaction monitoring. Our proactive approach helps clients identify potential risks early, maintain regulatory integrity, and respond quickly to emerging compliance challenges.
We analyze and maintain customer risk profiles through adverse media reviews, duplicate profile consolidation, and automated audits. These insights give clients a real-time understanding of their risk exposure, supporting stronger decision-making and long-term compliance confidence.
We connect and synchronize systems through automated data syncing, API setup, and backfilling processes. By enabling seamless data exchange and email-triggered reporting automation, we help clients eliminate manual workflows, improve accuracy, and gain real-time visibility across platforms.
Our team demonstrated its capabilities across a broader scope within the client’s organization, completing an ad-hoc data remediation project between March and May 2025. At its peak, this team consisted of 15 members. In March of this year, we received a large volume of work related to a major technology company’s customer data remediation project, with a 40-day timeline to complete the batch. Within a very short time, we trained and onboarded ten additional users to handle the workload. We began the project at the end of March, worked throughout April, and into the first few days of May.
In April alone, the team generated 4,428:05 billable hours, and we successfully submitted the completed batch in early May. This project demonstrated our agility and capability, particularly how quickly we can prepare and deploy trained users. The additional users weren’t new hires; we temporarily borrowed them from an existing SEBPO Team within this client’s organization since they already had experience with similar tasks.
Another major milestone for our partnership occurred during the pandemic years. When the virus hit, most employers required employees to work from home. We were no exception. A big chunk of our work could be done remotely. But not all of it. Due to the sensitive nature of some of the data and screenings involved, much of the work simply had to be done onsite—under strict security protocols. Because of its importance, that work could not be stopped or paused. It simply had to get done.
The answer? Move roughly 40 data analysts into SEBPO’s offices in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Two floors of our office space were reserved for work areas. Two more were retrofitted into sleeping quarters. A fifth was converted into a giant “living room” for those who needed to live on-site to spend time between shifts. Things went on like this for months. But the work got done. And the banks and other financial institutions safeguarded by the risk screenings continued to be protected. The dedication of our analysts ensured that the financial institutions served by our data analytics client could continue to operate without interruption or failure to properly vet critical risks.
“I admire how much the team has grown over the years. Our relationship gets stronger with each new team member who joins. We see their initiative wanting to learn, asking a lot of questions. So definitely continue to keep up the great work.”
The U.S. Patriot Act came quickly on the heels of September 11.
The law introduced sweeping financial regulations. For the first time, banks and other financial institutions doing business in the U.S. were responsible for detecting money laundering, terrorist financing, and fraud with zero room for error.
New levels of due diligence meant enormous amounts of data had to be collected, stored, and made searchable if there was any hope of compliance.
SEBPO’s client, an analytics powerhouse company, was ready to help. They made it their mission to aggregate all the right data, making it available to banks and other institutions so they could “know their customers” and screen for bad actors.
But there were problems.
One of the biggest was cleaning and validating the details they added to the databases. Someone had to go through everything and decide which revealed a risk and which did not.
This client needed a partner in a more cost-effective labor market that still enjoyed a talented, conscientious workforce.
Matt Kochan and A.S.M. Mohiuddin Monem, American and Bangladeshi co-founders of the still-new SEBPO, brought decades of experience running global services for Fortune 500 brands when this client approached them to bid for the work.
Back then, SEBPO had just six employees in Bangladesh. But Matt and Monem knew that winning the work could explode their growth.
They also knew the work was of such complexity and scope that they’d need a secret weapon to earn the business.
Enter Kevin Kochan, Matt’s son.
Today, Kevin is SEBPO’s Chief Executive Officer. But back then, he was just a new college grad ready to make his mark.
Kevin would need to go deep into the client’s business to understand the regulatory requirements and intricate operating details necessary for SEBPO to meet demands. It was a pivotal moment.
He cleared his schedule and spent the next few months deep in everything it would take to deliver the work. First, there were weeks in the client’s offices getting to know the requirements and regulations. Then, weeks in Bangladesh. He worked out processes, recruited the first 90 or so team members, trained them, got them set up with the necessary tech tools, etc. If SEBPO were to win the work, it would need to be done correctly from the start.
Matt Kochan puts it this way: “While I won the sale all those years ago, it was Kevin’s over-the-top efforts that won the business.”
“To this day,” Kevin says, “we like to say at SEBPO, ‘the greatest thing you can give someone is an opportunity.’”
That opportunity, and how Matt, Kevin, and the whole SEBPO Team responded to it in those first months and years, laid the foundation for much of the outsourcer’s future success.
What does SEBPO do for this data analytics industry client? Mostly, three things over the years:
Without the work of SEBPO’s data analysts, the client’s financial institution customers would be unable to meet their risk-vetting and due diligence requirements.
A cornerstone of SEBPO’s success has been its flexibility, which comes from two core capabilities. The ability to:
The speed with which SEBPO can field a high-performing team is uncommon in BPO. Lean operations avoid the complexity that slows others down.
Plus, using a talent development tool called a “bench” allows for the rapid deployment of more job-ready team members than competitors.
A “bench” is filled with excess resources not currently delivering day-to-day client service. It serves dual purposes, allowing team members to take their sick and paid leave while maintaining headcounts and building a trained talent pool for quick activation.
In addition to flexibility, SEBPO’s success is built on trust.
“When issues come up, and they do, we address them head-on,” says co-founder Matt Kochan. “We go to the client right away, admit the problem, and get busy working with everyone involved to identify and address the root cause.”
Kochan points out that effective problem-solving is always a team effort with the client. This is why SEBPO considers client connections genuine partnerships, not simply client/vendor relationships. One is transactional (and all too common in the BPO world) while the other is proactive and focused on mutual success, common goals, and challenge transparency.
“When there’s trust and a true partnership,” Kochan says, “both sides can go to the other with ‘the good, the bad, and the ugly’ and have honest conversations. Why? Because we’re both here to accomplish the same things: ‘Your success is our success’ and vice versa. That’s true partnership.”
Tough times test partnerships. While there has been no shortage of them over the going-on-twenty years SEBPO has worked with this client, none has compared with the advent of COVID-19.
When the virus hit, most employers who could required employees to work from home. SEBPO was no exception. A big chunk of their work could be done remotely, but not all of it.
Due to the sensitive nature of some of the data and screenings, much of the work had to be done on-site under strict security protocols. Because of its importance, that work could not be stopped or paused. It simply had to get done.
The answer? Move roughly 40 data analysts into SEBPO’s offices in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Two floors of their offices were reserved for workspace. Two more were retrofitted into sleeping quarters. A fifth was converted into a giant “living room” for those who needed to live on-site to spend time between shifts.
Things went on like this for months, but the work got done. The banks and other financial institutions safeguarded by the risk screenings continued to be protected.
The dedication of these analysts meant that the financial institutions served by our data analytics client could continue doing business, free of interruption or failure to vet critical risks properly.
Today, roughly 250 team members do this work with fluctuations up and down based on need.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, about two dozen of those team members have been with SEBPO from the start, now nearly two decades ago.
“The longevity of our partnership with this client speaks for itself,” says CEO Kevin Kochan. “As does the loyalty and commitment of our employees.”
Matt, while less involved in the business these days, agrees. “SEBPO has a unique culture that’s taken many years to create and can’t be duplicated by competitors,” says Kochan. “Our employees love to work here, and our clients love our employees. In BPO, that’s everything: the quality of the people doing the work and the relationships of trust they build with those they serve.”
