About Rotunda

Built from first principles by a practitioner who sat in the MLRO’s chair.

Rotunda began with a practical question: why is one of a regulated firm’s most important financial crime documents still so often assembled across spreadsheets, emails and slide decks?

Compliance teams need a method. Enterprise vendors often ship a platform.

That gap matters. An enterprise-wide risk assessment is not simply a set of scores. It is a chain of professional judgement: how the firm is exposed, whether its controls work, what risk remains and who has challenged the conclusion.

Yet the tools available to compliance teams tend to sit at two extremes. Spreadsheets are flexible but difficult to govern. Large systems can take six months of requirements workshops before the people doing the assessment see something usable.

Rotunda was built from the work itself: the questions an MLRO needs answered, the evidence a reviewer needs to see and the record a regulator expects a firm to produce.

Simple by design

Rigorous enough to defend. Simple enough to explain.

As the principle often attributed to Albert Einstein puts it: “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” That is a useful test for both methodology and software.

01 / Explainable methodology

Complexity should never obscure the rationale.

We have seen weighted scoring frameworks become so complicated that the calculation is harder to explain than the risk itself. More weightings do not automatically produce a better assessment; they can create a false impression of precision and hide the professional judgement underneath.

Rotunda keeps the logic proportionate and traceable. A reviewer can see the evidence, follow the scoring and understand why the firm reached its conclusion.

The methodology takes account of applicable national regulatory guidance, FATF standards, Wolfsberg Group guidance and established industry practice. It provides a consistent framework without replacing the firm’s own risk-based judgement.

Tested in the room

We have explained the methodology in detail to regulators. They could follow the logic from the underlying inputs to the final risk conclusion.

02 / Intuitive software

Compliance technology does not have to be boring.

People use sophisticated consumer technology every day without reading a manual. Compliance teams should expect the same clarity from the software they use at work, not a system that requires a qualification before anyone can operate it.

Rotunda is built around affordance: controls look and behave as people expect, the next step is visible, and status is clear. A practitioner should be able to sit down, pick it up and understand what to do without a training course.

Clear next stepFamiliar controlsVisible status

Built by an SME, for SMEs

Expert-built software can stay close to the problem.

Start with the obligation

The method comes before the interface. Every workflow exists to make the assessment clearer, more consistent or easier to evidence.

Keep judgement visible

Software should structure expert judgement, not hide it. Inputs, calculations, challenge and approvals remain open to inspection.

Ship what practitioners need

Short feedback loops beat six-month requirements cycles. Rotunda can respond to the real work without a programme around the programme.

The Woolwich Rotunda, the building that inspired the Rotunda name.

The name

A structure designed to endure change.

Rotunda is named for the Woolwich Rotunda: the distinctive John Nash structure first built as a temporary ballroom in 1814, moved to Woolwich and reopened as a museum in 1820.

Its history fits the product’s purpose. A sound structure can adapt to a new setting without losing its integrity. Rotunda gives a firm’s risk methodology that same quality: a stable framework that can respond as the business and its risks change.

Read the Historic England research

“Make the assessment as simple as possible, but not simpler: every score explainable, every conclusion defensible.”
Rotunda’s founding principle

Talk to a practitioner

See whether Rotunda fits your assessment.

A focused conversation about your current process, methodology and governance needs.

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