Monitor More Companies, Spend Less Time: Inside Owlin’s New Monitoring Environment

As regulatory pressure intensifies to continuously monitor third-party risk exposure, risk and compliance teams face a challenge: how to monitor more companies without drowning in information. Eduardo Zajbert Peña, Head of Product at Owlin, discusses how Owlin’s new monitoring environment addresses this challenge head-on, transforming overwhelming data streams into clear, actionable insights that help financial institutions work smarter, not harder.

What triggered the development of the new monitoring environment?

“Several factors came together. Owlin’s coverage keeps expanding, which means that clients need to process more information every day. We heard from the clients that they preferred a way to address the noise and prioritize high risk signals better. Clients wanted faster ways to see what truly matters. That feedback was a key trigger. At the same time, we wanted to align more closely with current industry standards and state-of-the-art product practices. The goal was simple: solve real client problems and make the product future-proof.”

How is this different from Owlin’s previous monitoring environment, and what value does it bring?

“The new monitoring puts what matters front and center. The previous monitoring environment did not highlight priorities as clearly as clients needed. Now, users can quickly understand risk at different levels. Customers can take a top-level approach by looking at a company’s risk score, or they can go deeper into summaries, events, and underlying articles. Overall, the information is more concise and structured, which makes it faster to understand and easier to act on.”

What tasks become easier or faster for users?

“Consuming news becomes much faster. Previously, users often had to read many articles about the same event. Now, related articles are grouped into one event summary. This minimizes duplication and noise. The system is also more accurate in detecting false positives, so users spend less time on irrelevant risk signals and more time on what actually matters.”

Can you give a simple example of how a risk analyst and a risk manager at the bank would use it in their daily work?

“Risk analysts normally would look at the data that comes across for a certain company. Daily, they have a list of companies to review, and with Owlin, there are different ways to do so. They can either check whether the score changed, look into more detail, or examine the most recent events for this company. A risk manager usually has less time, so they can rely on scores and summaries to get quick insights and then ask risk analysts to investigate specific cases further. Both roles work from the same environment, but at different depths.”

What shifts do you see in the risk and compliance market right now?

“Regulators worldwide are putting more pressure on financial institutions to monitor the companies they do business with, not just direct clients, but any third parties they work with. Banks are essentially becoming the first line of defense against financial crime, from sanctions violations to money laundering. The challenge is the expanded requirements, which mean banks need to process significantly more data. 

And it’s not just about doing more checks; the digital footprint everyone leaves behind keeps growing, so there’s more information to analyze for each entity. This creates a massive overhead problem: banks are being asked to do significantly more monitoring without necessarily getting more budget or resources. That’s why they’re actively looking for tools and solutions that help them work more efficiently, doing better risk monitoring without drowning their teams in data.”

How does Owlin’s monitoring fit into these changes and give a competitive edge regarding these regulations? 

“What we try to do at Owlin is increase information density. You get more insight with less time, so customers can spend more time on other checks or on checking even more third parties and companies. That means you can monitor more companies without increasing your workload.

Owlin has always been strong in adverse media. With the new monitoring environment, we bring that together with regulatory exposure data. Think of sanctions, watchlists, state ownership, politically exposed people, and similar risk signals banks need to track. Instead of jumping between sources, everything comes together in Owlin’s OmniSignal view.”

How did the product team work together on this release?

“It really started with listening to clients. We took their input, then looked at the tools we already had, the new tools we could use, and how we could design something better. Client interviews were key for this process. Before building anything, we first checked if our ideas actually solved the problems clients described.

Throughout the process, product, engineering, and clients stayed closely connected. Some ideas came from formal feedback sessions, others from casual conversations in the office. If an idea clearly helped clients and made an impact, we moved forward with it. It’s a long process, but I also believe it brings a lot of good energy and freshness to building something new. People are excited not only internally but also from what we hear from our clients.”

How did client feedback influence the final product?

“Client feedback is never a one-time thing for us. Bringing clients in early helped us move faster and improve quality along the way. Even after release, feedback stays just as important because it allows us to decide what to build next based on real problems, not assumptions.

Clients also share what their daily work looks like. That gives us a much better understanding of how the product is actually used. When clients see that their input shapes the product, they appreciate it. In the end, it leads to a solution that fits their workflows much better and allows us to build something valuable.”

When can current clients switch to a new monitoring environment?

“The goal is to have everything in there in the first quarter of 2026.” 

Plans for further improvements in 2026?

“There is a full roadmap, but it stays flexible. Feedback from early releases will strongly influence what comes next. A big focus is smarter alerts. Not only what you are alerted to, but also how. For example, getting a summary instead of raw news articles, or an alert when a score changes. We also look at delivering alerts through tools people already use, like Teams or Slack.

We plan to add more data sources as well. Everything stays focused on one goal. Make daily work easier, faster, and more actionable for clients. We will see next year.”