Eindhoven-based Hyarchis has acquired Groningen IT service provider DAPAS.
With the acquisition, Hyarchis says it has introduced a “comprehensive compliance solution” for the accountancy market. With this, accountants can automatically bring their compliance in order throughout the entire lifecycle of their clients.
The acquisition comes at a time when compliance is in the spotlight within the accountancy sector. The Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM) recently published a position paper, and said the accountancy sector “does not sufficiently identify and address fraud risks”.
As a result, the regulator said it expected the industry to fulfil its role as a “gatekeeper” better, and has announced stricter controls.
Hyarchis serves 400 customers within the accountancy sector, using document management and AI-driven compliance applications.
Adriaan Hoogduijn, CEO of Hyarchis, said: “By combining our forces, we offer a new proposition in the Dutch accountancy sector. We have been the market leader in document management for ten years, and with the acquisition of DAPAS we are adding customer onboarding to this.
“In addition, with our merger, accountants can now manage compliance in a fully automated manner throughout their customers’ entire lifecycle. This extends from a centralised underwriting process for new customers to automated monitoring of existing customers, and trimming historical customer data.”
DAPAS was founded in 2015 by former KPMG employees, who built the firm’s first application for onboarding clients. The application is in use at about 120 firms in the Netherlands, helping them accept new clients while meeting anti-fraud and other regulatory requirements.
