Back for Good: How returning to Thirdfort is driving stronger compliance at scale for Muve
Published
Muve is one of the UK's largest conveyancing firms, onboarding and verifying thousands of home buyers, sellers and movers per month. When it came to choosing a client due diligence (CDD) partner, their journey with Thirdfort wasn's a straight line. They partnered with us, explored an alternative and chose to come back.
We spoke to two of the Muve team to understand why. Emma Bough, Director and General Counsel, is committed to compliance, auditability and ensuring their CDD provider can grow with the business. Maneka Dedigama, Deputy General Manager, Audit and Compliance, is focused on daily operations, team efficiency and the tools her analysts rely on to get through thousands of verifications a month. Different priorities day to day, same destination: a compliance function that keeps pace with the business. Here's how Thirdfort brought it home for Muve.
A warm welcome back: the numbers to prove it
A 350% improvement in AML check efficiency since 2024, driven by a transformation that included streamlining workflows and leveraging Thirdfort for verification.
Review turnaround time and timeliness of client follow-up for outstanding information has improved significantly.
Reliable, auditable processes across thousands of clients being onboarded per month.
Eliminated the need to assist their clients in completing checks, delivering substantial time savings and a fantastic client journey.
Strengthened KYC controls and enhanced overall compliance assurance.
Deja Muve
In this case, absence really did make the team grow fonder. Muve previously partnered with Thirdfort, then returned after a year away. At the scale Muve operates, the team needed a platform that could match the speed of a business that never stops moving, meet client expectations and support the professionals who rely on it every day.
The legal lens
With Emma Bough, Director and General Counsel
Emma has been in the property industry for over 20 years. She's watched more happen in AML regulation in the past five to ten years than in the previous twenty. The role has expanded beyond recognition. Her team are lawyers, paralegals and conveyancers, but the job now asks them to be fraud detectives, environmental specialists and everything in between.
"Compliance is not just a checklist. We have to look at individual issues and circumstances and understand every single person who we are instructed by. The job has transformed, becoming more complex and undeniably multifaceted."
Emma Bough, Director and General Counsel
That complexity means that technology partners must be chosen thoughtfully. Emma needs a platform that does what it says it does, and meets the requirements of a challenging regulatory environment.
"The legitimacy of the technology Thirdfort builds and the data you utilise is really impressive. As General Counsel, I can't risk using any product that promises but doesn't deliver. We have that confidence that Thirdfort is using the right technology with the right support and scaffolding built around it."
Emma Bough, Director and General Counsel
That regulatory awareness was a key reason for the return. With regulatory scrutiny increasing, Muve needs a partner who is building around the legislation, not catching up to it. Without that, Emma's team had no real visibility over what had been done and what hadn't, and at high volume, that's not just inefficient. It's risky.
"When you are only utilising manual checks or working with an ineffective partner, particularly at high volume, you have no real concept of what you might have missed. The reality is, you don't know what you don't know, because there's a lack of consistency. Thirdfort is embedded in our workflow, allowing us to have an auditable process, which then in turn means that we can quickly identify riskier transactions and more effectively mitigate risk."
Emma Bough, Director and General Counsel
That sense of responsibility shapes how Emma thinks about everything from the tools her team uses to the partners the business relies on. It's about making sure Muve's clients are safe, the business is protected and the wider community benefits from getting it right.
"We can stamp our feet about the burden that is placed on us, but it's not going to go away. It's better to acknowledge that we've all got a part to play in preventing money laundering and related crime. Going into conveyancing isn't something you ever think can have a real big impact on crime prevention, but actually, we do, and that's something to be proud of."
Emma Bough, Director and General Counsel
It's impressive to find someone who's spent 20 years in property and still talks about compliance with this much conviction. Emma's perspective isn't just shaped by regulations and risk. It's shaped by a genuine belief that the work matters, and that having the right partner makes it possible to do it properly at the pace Muve operates.
The operational lens
With Maneka Dedigama, Deputy General Manager, Audit and Compliance
Maneka's journey at Muve started on the conveyancing floor, during an incredibly busy period, working through two stamp duty deadlines with double the usual case volume. It gave her a front-row seat to how compliance actually worked at the ground level, and how much of it was held together by manual processes.
The picture was a lot different then, ID verification processes were fragmented. Source of funds was handled on phone calls, typed up into follow-up emails, and then the team waited for documents to come back. Every step was manual, time-consuming and difficult to track.
"It wasn't very different to historical conveyancing processes from a time before legal tech products. Back then, you'd go meet your conveyancer, then they tell you to bring your document so that they could review and file it. It was similar, just done via email and phone and it took the same amount of time and back and forth as meeting in person."
Maneka Dedigama, Deputy General Manager, Audit and Compliance
Luckily, with a lot of will and hard work, Maneka has been able to leverage technology to transform the process. But the shift wasn't just manual to technical. Clients have changed too, with increasingly complex cases. That variety makes a dependable, technology-driven process essential rather than optional.
When Maneka took on the project of rebuilding Muve's KYC check accuracy, efficiency and quality. The team of 11 was operating with a 48-hour resolution target, but hitting that SLA less consistently than they knew they were capable of. Analysts were defaulting to manual habits. The guidance wasn't aligned with the risk, and the technology wasn't being used to its potential.
Maneka and her team rebuilt the entire approach. They focused on training, on ease of reviews on every case, stripped out unnecessary manual updates and started tracking data at every stage: from client instruction to onboarding, from report return to sign-off.
The numbers speak for themselves. The Muve team has recorded a 350% (yes, you read that correctly) increase in efficiency for AML verification sign-offs, comparing their tech-enabled process against the largely manual approach they'd been using before. This phenomenal achievement was driven by a wider transformation that included streamlining workflows and the Muve team now meet a tighter 24-hour resolution target, 98% of the time.
"Everybody says 'well done'. With those results I believe it is deserved, but the thing I want to highlight is that it only required a change in approach and a commitment to doing things better. We weren't investing in and leveraging the right technology. Now we are."
Maneka Dedigama, Deputy General Manager, Audit and Compliance
Central to that transformation was the uniform report structure that Thirdfort provides. When every client's report follows the same format, the AML & Fraud Detection team along with the Conveyancing Team knows where to look and what to look for. Nothing slips through the cracks, and conveyancers can view the matter risk assessment holistically. For a firm like Muve, that time saving compounds across every file.
"While the efficiency gains for the conveyancing team are significant, the real value lies in the quality and reliability of the reports. This isn’t just about speed or ticking boxes, it’s about giving conveyancers genuine confidence in what they’re reviewing. With robust, consistent reports landing on their desks, they can trust the information in front of them and focus their expertise where it matters most. That sense of assurance not only improves decision-making but also creates a better day-to-day experience for the team, something that ultimately benefits both clients and the business as a whole.”
Maneka Dedigama, Deputy General Manager, Audit and Compliance
One team, two perspectives, Thirdfort
For Emma, the priority was a partner built around the regulations rather than reacting to them, one she could trust to match the standard her role demands. For Maneka, it was a platform that gave her team consistency, speed and reports they could actually train people on. Two perspectives, one conclusion.
Technology and AI is a daily conversation at Muve. Everyone across the business is excited about the potential. But both Emma and Maneka share the same philosophy: technology should make people better at their jobs, not replace the judgment that makes those jobs matter. It's an approach that aligns with how Thirdfort builds too.
"What Thirdfort is doing is not removing our ability to use legal judgment. It's saying, let's help you make that judgment far easier and quicker so it's a better experience for all of you and your clients. It gives us that regulatory reassurance, the compliance that we need. It's knowing that you're in control of your compliance."
Emma Bough, Director and General Counsel
"Having an ID partner isn't about relying on another party to do your compliance. It's about the fact that when you're doing verifications in bulk, when you're doing this at volume, you need that uniform report from each and every client. You have the right technology partners, you have the right vision for your business, and your ability to collaborate."
Maneka Dedigama, Deputy General Manager, Audit and Compliance
Many happy returns
We asked Emma and Maneka what advice they'd give to other firms weighing up their options for CDD partners, both land in the same place.
"If you are in a compliance role, you need a robust, auditable process. You need to be able to quickly identify risk areas and have confidence in the technology that supports you. The technology exists, so why would we not use it?"
Emma Bough, Director and General Counsel
"My advice would be 100% go for it. But find the right partner. You need consistency, you need reports your team can actually work with and you need a provider that keeps pace with the regulations. That's what made the difference for us."
Maneka Dedigama, Deputy General Manager, Audit and Compliance
Thank you to Emma and Maneka for sharing your insights, we're excited to be a part Muve's journey. To learn more about Muve, visit their website here.
Whether it's hello or welcome back, we're ready when you are. Contact our team today to learn more about what Thirdfort's CDD platform can do for you.
Reduce verification times by up to 80%
Free your team for high-value work
Achieve 'outstanding' client satisfaction
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