An expert in making sure businesses are in line with tough laws to crack down on money-laundering and terrorist financing has launched his own firm.

Jarion Richardson quit his job with law firm Appleby, where he was compliance manager, to branch out on his own.

And he said his new company, Certainty, was targeting small- to medium-sized firms who needed compliance services, but could not justify a full-time position.

Mr Richardson, a former reporter at The Royal Gazette and an ex-police officer, said: “Regulation is getting very complex very quickly and Bermuda has certain hallmarks to achieve on certain timelines and I wanted to be part of helping us to get there.”

He explained that international compliance standards aimed at clamping down on money-laundering and other financial crime was being extended to areas like real estate and high-value dealers like jewellers, while charities were already subject to anti-money laundering supervision.

Mr Richardson said: “These people have never been regulated or supervised.

“They will go from having very little interface with government bodies to having government officials showing up on their doorsteps and asking questions.”

He added: “It’s a growth industry because it’s a well-established international standard and we have to not just say we’re doing it, we have to prove we’re doing it as well.”

The 37-year-old also spent nearly three years at the Bermuda Monetary Authority, where he was a senior analyst and conducted training for businesses in anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing.

Earlier, he served in the Bermuda Police, finishing his career as a Detective Constable specialising in intelligence and also served for several years in the Royal Bermuda Regiment, latterly as an officer cadet.

Mr Richardson said: “I’m from the generation at the BMA that reinvigorated this new focus on supervision and regulation in Bermuda.

“The BMA trained me — I went on two courses on how to conduct on-site examinations and how to conduct thematic supervision.”

He added: “My speciality at the BMA was anti-money laundering. We had just come out of an international assessment where we didn’t do very well and we had brought in anti-money laundering legislation from the UK — just through fortune, I was in the right place at the right time.

“It was the greatest challenge I thought I would ever see — it was new and tough, but I threw myself into it and I thank the BMA for giving me that opportunity.”

Mr Richardson said: “Policing has helped me as well because you need a certain level of tenacity and you have to believe an objective is possible.

“People look at all these regulations and get overwhelmed and start making poor decisions because they have panicked.”

He added: “Compliance is part art and part science and that’s what draws in people who are attracted to complexity.”

And he said: “In the police and the regiment, if there was one thing they give you, it’s you’re able to keep your head on, no matter how bad it gets.

“You have to arrive at a simple solution, but you have to go through complex steps to get there. You have to have a mind for technical challenges.”

And Mr Richardson said: “In the police, everything I did was applying methods to understand something else.

“You have to learn how to objectively assess situations and come up with solutions that ultimately can turn into evidence in some shape or fashion.”

Mr Richards said he had been “surprised” by the level of interest in his services since he launched Certainty from a home office in Devonshire six weeks ago.

He added: “It’s going quite well. A big part of this is that businesses are trying to proactively manage their risk.

“A small- to medium-sized business can’t undertake this particular challenge themselves.

“They can’t afford to have the technical expertise on board all the time, but they do have a need for it.

“People have said to me ‘I would rather you do it right than me taking a long time to figure out if I’m doing it right’.

“And we’re only going to see more and more regulation and more supervision and if people don’t take their obligations seriously, we will see more penalties being issued.

“That’s a challenge I like having and keeping businesses open and running while I’m doing it.

“It about creating a smart system that takes less time but still accomplishes everything it’s supposed to do.”

Certainty can be contacted at 704-2136 or at www.certainty.bm.