Credas Spotlights Digital Compliance Opportunity Amid Legal Reporting Surge

Welsh Fintech Credas Spotlights Digital Compliance Opportunity Amid Legal Reporting Surge

Cardiff-based Credas Technologies has highlighted a growing opportunity for digital compliance reform in the property sector, following new data from the UK Financial Intelligence Unit (UKFIU) showing a significant rise in legal sector Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) — while estate and letting agent reporting declined by 14.8% in 2024–25.

According to the UKFIU’s Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) Annual Report 2024–25, estate and letting agents submitted 890 SARs in 2024–25, down from 1,044 in 2023–24. Over the same period, the legal sector increased reporting from 2,419 to 3,392 SARs — an uplift of nearly 1,000 reports, representing a 40% increase year-on-year.

The reporting gap between the two sectors has widened significantly, with legal professionals now submitting 3.8 times more SARs than property agents, compared with 2.3 times more in the previous year.

Defence Against Money Laundering (DAML) requests reflect a similar pattern, with the legal sector submitting 1,336 DAMLs compared with 454 from the property sector in 2024–25.

While the UKFIU notes that a transition to a new reporting portal may affect year-on-year comparability, Credas argues that the scale of divergence — alongside the legal sector’s ability to increase reporting during the same period — points to an opportunity for the property sector to modernise its compliance approach.

Neil Williams, CTO at Credas Technologies, said:

“This data should be a wake-up call for the property sector. After years of gradual improvement, we’re now moving in the wrong direction. The legal sector has shown a 40% increase in reporting during the same period — proving that practitioners can adapt to new systems whilst maintaining vigilance. The property sector’s decline suggests agents are either missing red flags or failing to report them.”

Established in 2016 and headquartered in Cardiff, Credas provides remote identity verification technology to legal, property and business professionals, verifying more than four million individuals annually. The company was the first Identity Service Provider to be certified to a ‘very high’ level of confidence under the UK Government Trust Framework.