Interviews
Advancing on a Cloud: Driving Digital Transformation in Financial Crime
Published by Jessica Weisman-Pitts
Posted on September 28, 2022
3 min readLast updated: February 4, 2026
Global Banking & Finance Review®
Company
Published by Jessica Weisman-Pitts
Posted on September 28, 2022
3 min readLast updated: February 4, 2026
As CEO of NICE Actimize, Craig Costigan has continued to steer the leading provider of financial crime solutions by expanding into new markets, addressing the growing demand for cloud-focused solutions, and forging innovation across the full scope of anti-money laundering, enterprise fraud, holistic...
As CEO of NICE Actimize, Craig Costigan has continued to steer the leading provider of financial crime solutions by expanding into new markets, addressing the growing demand for cloud-focused solutions, and forging innovation across the full scope of anti-money laundering, enterprise fraud, holistic surveillance, and case management.
In driving innovation, Craig’s teams of cloud developers, artificial intelligence experts and data scientists launched many new solutions this year, including advanced sanctions screening, dark web intelligence, entity risk solutions, conduct surveillance, and new account fraud offerings. Further integrating his recent acquisitions into the NICE Actimize family, he also led the continued success of two financial crime platforms, X-Sight and Xceed, explicitly addressing the challenges of top-tier traditional banks and mid-tier financial institutions, along with a focus on neobanks, crypto firms and more.
“Our success has always been tied to placing the customer in the centre of all we do, and this accomplishment has been no exception,” explained Craig when he spoke with Wanda Rich, editor of Global Banking & Finance Review.
His and NICE Actimize’s success in customer satisfaction and technology innovation this year has been mirrored industry wide. NICE Actimize regularly earns top leadership rankings from the industry’s analyst firms for its solutions, while global media also award NICE Actimize’s innovation, citing advancements in wealth management, conduct surveillance, enterprise fraud and anti-money laundering across the Americas, EMEA and the Asia Pacific region.
With all these successes, what does Craig consider his most significant? Leading a strong, can-do, customer-first culture has been his greatest source of pride. As the executive explained: “Without a strong commitment to our employees, we could never provide the service level required to lead our customers through the challenges of our changing workplace. We have expanded across our offices located around the world, and successfully established a committed work-from-home environment. I couldn’t be prouder of the successes that our organisation has achieved on behalf of our customers based in more than 70 countries.”
What does Craig have planned for the future? His answer focused on advancements in the cloud. He noted: “Cloud is no longer nice to have; it is a must. We have seen a considerable uptick in the demand for cloud across all application areas and sizes of financial institutions. We expect cloud to continue its accelerated growth for the next three or four years.”
Craig remains responsible for NICE Actimize’s market strategy and vision, leading all sales, product, R&D, international services, and marketing. He is passionate about new growth, creating value, and developing innovative solutions for NICE Actimize clients worldwide while helping them address their most critical challenges.
Before joining NICE Actimize, Craig worked at FIS as President of Capital Markets & Credit (CMC), a $1.1 billion segment, where he managed a team of 4,000 (est.) staff worldwide, overseeing risk, compliance, credit, security finance, securities processing, and market data solutions and services for over 2,000 banks, broker-dealers, investment firms, hedge funds, insurance companies and clients in the financial market. Before FIS, Craig served as President of the Risk, Compliance and Global Securities (RCGS) Business at SunGard. RCGS was a $650 million global business with over 2,000 staff that provided front, middle, and back-office solutions and services to large and mid-tier banks and broker-dealers globally. As a former executive at FIS and SunGard, Craig brings senior leadership and expertise to NICE and helps the company provide superior solutions and services to its clients globally.
Financial crime refers to illegal activities that involve deceit or fraud for financial gain, including money laundering, fraud, and embezzlement.
Anti-money laundering (AML) encompasses laws and regulations designed to prevent the practice of generating income through illegal actions.
Cloud-based solutions are services provided over the internet, allowing users to access and store data remotely rather than on local servers.
Customer satisfaction measures how products or services meet or exceed customer expectations, indicating their overall happiness with a company's offerings.
Digital transformation is the process of integrating digital technology into all areas of a business, fundamentally changing how it operates and delivers value to customers.
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