Key findings

• 51% of senior financial crime compliance decision-makers want more regulatory guidance on organized crime and racketeering.
• Almost half – 45% – say they cannot identify potentially connected criminal activity due to siloed datasets.
• Despite global anti-money laundering (AML) fines exceeding $7.3bn in 2023, 47% of firms believe stronger public-private cooperation and data-sharing would significantly impact financial crime. Just 38% cited higher fines. 

LONDON, NEW YORK — Thursday, January 16, 2025—Organized crime—coordinated criminal enterprises profiting from a range of illegal activities—plays an increasingly dominant role in global criminality. 

What’s more, it is shaping much of the global political agenda. From Donald Trump threatening to issue sweeping tariffs to try and tackle drug trafficking and illegal immigration in the United States to continued concern in the UK about small boats crossing the Channel with migrants, the collateral damage organized crime groups cause in pursuing their profits is shaping the political agenda worldwide.

However, exclusive research released today by ComplyAdvantage shows many senior compliance professionals lack the tools and guidance to combat it effectively. In a survey of 600 senior financial crime decision-makers across the payments and banking sectors in the Americas, Western Europe, and Asia-Pacific, 51% said they need more guidance on organized crime from regulators. 

Even with additional regulatory guidance, legacy technology remains a barrier for many firms. 45%—almost half—say siloed datasets prevent them from identifying potentially connected criminal activities. In one recent example, Switzerland’s federal police force revealed an investigation that came to unearth a Europe-wide organized crime ring. The spark that ignited the investigation? The simple act of two neighboring countries submitting simultaneous police reports about the same suspicious vehicle. 

Iain Armstrong, global regulatory affairs practice lead at ComplyAdvantage, said: “As the Swiss example shows, financial crime doesn’t respect the borders of any country or financial institution, and at the early stages of an investigation, connecting seemingly innocuous pieces of intelligence can be critical. It took four years for investigators to get from those initial police reports to uncovering a sophisticated organized crime operation that – we can assume – had been operating undetected for some time. 

This example is just the tip of the iceberg. Throughout 2024, organized crime groups have proven adept at finding new markets into which to expand, particularly in areas like the trafficking of drugs and people.”

Vatsa Narasimha, CEO at ComplyAdvantage, said: “We are hearing consistently from financial institutions that a key priority for 2025 is consolidating AML tech stacks. This is critical to enhancing analysts’ ability to identify related data points that may uncover complex entities like an organized crime ring. This greater ability to take a full view of risk, alongside greater guidance from regulators, would go some way to tackling the rising tide of criminal activity we are facing today.”

Drug trafficking trends to watch

In June 2024, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) issued its annual World Drug Report 2024, which highlighted both a “record demand and supply” of well-known narcotics, as well as the growing use of new synthetic opioids. The trends noted include:

• A “surge” in the cocaine market, with increasing violence throughout major supply routes from Latin America, the Caribbean, and into Europe. 
• The rise of nitazenes – synthetic opioids more addictive than fentanyl – began to account for a growing number of deaths by overdose in the developed world. 
• The impact of decriminalizing cannabis and/or the legalization of its production and sale for non-medical uses in many jurisdictions has led many organized crime groups (OCGs) to diversify into higher-strength cannabis products.
• The “psychedelic renaissance” in the developed world led to a growth in the market for the illegal and unsupervised use of psychedelic drugs such as psilocybin and LSD.

Armstrong adds that: “From nitazenes to the rapid decriminalization of cannabis in markets like the US, organized crime groups will quickly shift their operations to accommodate the latest trends. Financial institutions cannot afford to stand still – rules and policies that effectively detect organized crimes in 2024 may not work as well in 2025. The criminals keep moving, so we do, too.” 

The changing role of AI

Against the backdrop of growing organized crime complexity, 2025 marks a landmark year in which banks and payment firms will deploy AI across various applications. The ComplyAdvantage survey showed more than 90% of firms worldwide are already using AI in several capacities, including:

• GenAI tools like ChatGPT to generate reports.
• Analyzing historical transaction data.
• Prioritizing the greatest potential transaction monitoring alerts.

Despite the widespread deployment of AI, 91% of compliance leaders surveyed by ComplyAdvantage say they are either somewhat or very comfortable compromising explainability in exchange for greater automation and efficiency. 

Armstrong notes, “Policymakers are putting the ability to explain decisions that could be as critical as whether to approve a loan or mortgage to both customers and regulators front and center in their AI regulatory roadmaps. While automation can improve efficiency, it can’t and shouldn’t come at the expense of explainability.”

For ComplyAdvantage

Will Thompson
ComplyAdvantage
william.thompson@complyadvantage.com 

About ComplyAdvantage

ComplyAdvantage is the financial industry’s leading source of AI-driven financial crime risk data and fraud detection technology. ComplyAdvantage’s mission is to neutralize the risk of money laundering, terrorist financing, corruption, and other financial crimes. More than 1,300 enterprises in 80 countries rely on ComplyAdvantage to understand the risk of who they’re doing business with through the world’s only global, real-time database of people and companies. The company identifies thousands of risk events daily from millions of structured and unstructured data points. 

ComplyAdvantage has five global hubs in New York, Lisbon, London, Singapore, and Cluj-Napoca and is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Goldman Sachs, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Index Ventures, and Balderton Capital. Learn more at complyadvantage.com.

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ComplyAdvantage, the leading financial crime intelligence company, has been placed in the Leader quadrant for Anti-Money Laundering by G2 for the fourth consecutive quarter. G2 is the world’s largest and most trusted software marketplace.

ComplyAdvantage is one of just eleven companies to be placed in the Leader quadrant, thanks to its high customer satisfaction (based on user reviews) and substantial market presence scores (based on market share, seller size, and social impact).

The company was also featured as a leader in several other top G2 reports (registration required):

1. Momentum Grid® Report for Anti Money Laundering | Winter 2025 – Leader
2. Mid-Market Grid® Report for Anti Money Laundering | Winter 2025 – Leader
3. Grid® Report for Governance, Risk & Compliance | Winter 2025 – Leader

G2 has more than 90 million users annually — including employees at all Fortune 500 companies — who make decisions about software to invest in using authentic peer reviews. 

About ComplyAdvantage

ComplyAdvantage is the financial industry’s leading source of AI-driven financial crime risk data and fraud detection technology. ComplyAdvantage’s mission is to neutralize the risk of money laundering, terrorist financing, corruption, and other financial crime. More than 1000 enterprises in 75 countries rely on ComplyAdvantage to understand the risk of who they’re doing business with through the world’s only global, real-time database of people and companies. The company identifies thousands of risk events daily from millions of structured and unstructured data points.

ComplyAdvantage has four global hubs in New York, London, Singapore, and Cluj-Napoca and is backed by Goldman Sachs, Ontario Teachers, Index Ventures, and Balderton Capital. Learn more at complyadvantage.com.

For information:

Will Thompson

william.thompson@complyadvantage.com

The post ComplyAdvantage placed in the G2 AML Leader quadrant for fourth consecutive quarter appeared first on ComplyAdvantage.

LONDON—ComplyAdvantage, the leader in financial crime intelligence, announced it has been featured as a Category Leader for KYC Solutions in the Chartis RiskTech Quadrant® 2024. 

A specialist advisory firm in risk, compliance, and financial technology, Chartis focuses on supporting financial institutions, investment managers, and insurers.

In the parallel Chartis RiskTech Quadrant® 2024 for KYC Data, ComplyAdvantage also became the sole ‘best-of-breed’ vendor, reflecting its specialist expertise in financial crime risk intelligence. Specifically, ComplyAdvantage was the only firm to receive best-in-class scores in both the ‘sanctions and watchlist data’ and ‘negative news and PEPs’ categories. The firm has a proprietary mix of sanctions, watchlists, fitness, probity, PEPs, RCAs, and adverse media data driven by AI and verified by experts for accuracy. 

“‘ComplyAdvantage has expanded to cover traditional financial institutions and FinTechs, with risk scoring and analytics capabilities that have embedded its offerings in a wide variety of global vendor and organizational solutions,” said Ahmad Kataf, Senior Research Specialist at Chartis. “This strong specialization, and its growing presence as a key pillar in many KYC processes, is reflected in its category leader positioning in our 2024 KYC Solutions quadrant.”

ComplyAdvantage’s proprietary data quality has previously been noted by other expert assessments, including RegTech Solutions (formerly SQA Consulting). “We have rated ComplyAdvantage’s PEP data coverage as ‘Excellent.’ Our benchmarking shows ComplyAdvantage’s name-matching efficiency and effectiveness are market-leading, with name-matching rates of close to 100%. This is very good, almost exceptionally good, a little higher than we often see for exact name tests.” 

Finally, Chartis ranked ComplyAdvantage as a category leader for transaction monitoring. The analysts rated ComplyAdvantage as ‘best-in-class’ for data and system integrations, focus on modeling and risk typology, as well as ‘industry-leading’ for its focus on speed and volume, platform and case management, and solution packaging/deployment.

Chartis assessed the ComplyAdvantage product suite through an extensive written submission and follow-up in-person interviews between ComplyAdvantage experts and Chartis analysts. This included a live demo of relevant solutions. 

ENDS

For additional information, please contact:

William Thompson
ComplyAdvantage
william.thompson@complyadvantage.com 

About ComplyAdvantage

ComplyAdvantage is the financial industry’s leading source of AI-driven financial crime risk data and fraud detection technology. ComplyAdvantage’s mission is to neutralize the risk of money laundering, terrorist financing, corruption, and other financial crime. More than 1,300 enterprises in 80 countries rely on ComplyAdvantage to understand the risk of who they’re doing business with through the world’s only global, real-time database of people and companies. The company identifies thousands of risk events daily from millions of structured and unstructured data points. 

ComplyAdvantage has five global hubs in New York, Lisbon, London, Singapore, and Cluj-Napoca and is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Goldman Sachs, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Index Ventures, and Balderton Capital. Learn more at complyadvantage.com.

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(New York) September 12, 2024 — ComplyAdvantage, the leader in financial crime intelligence, today announced that it has named Paul Kizakevich as chief revenue officer (CRO). A proven executive who has held senior commercial roles in scale-up and enterprise organizations over the past 25 years, Kizakevich brings deep AI and high-growth leadership experience to ComplyAdvantage. His appointment comes as the financial crime industry is in significant transition, driven by up to $2 trillion in annual losses and the imperative to harness the power of next-generation technology to regain an advantage over criminals.

“We continue to see increased demand from large enterprises, all of whom are unhappy with the status quo and are looking to improve efficiency and efficacy by evolving from overly manual, inefficient, on-premise financial crime risk management solutions,” said ComplyAdvantage CEO Vatsa Narasimha. “Paul’s impressive record of accelerating growth for AI-driven, cloud-native, risk and security companies will be critical as we demonstrate the value ComplyAdvantage can bring to those global customers.” 

Kizakevich joins ComplyAdvantage from AI-augmented software testing automation platform Katalon, where he served as president and CRO. Katalon was featured on Deloitte’s 2023 Technology Fast 500™ thanks to its 3,482 percent revenue growth in the preceding three years. Prior to that, he was CRO at ASAPP, an AI-driven customer interaction platform delivering more than $100M in operational efficiency gains for Fortune 100 organizations. Kizakevich was also a senior vice president at the real-time customer experience and security platform ThousandEyes (now part of Cisco after an approximately $1B acquisition), working with global financial services companies, such as JPMorganChase, Bank of America, and Lloyds.

At ComplyAdvantage, Kizakevich will oversee the global commercial organization to increase global market penetration, invest in its thriving partner ecosystem, and ensure material success for its 1,600 customers. His appointment also reflects the company’s momentum in the U.S. market. Eric Lightfoot, VP of sales, also joined ComplyAdvantage in April 2024 to help further accelerate growth in this market. 

“ComplyAdvantage has an impressive track record of using AI to disrupt the fraud and anti-money laundering market,” Kizakevich said. “The company’s team of dedicated individuals is focused on providing the technology, data, and insights to help customers manage their risk exposure and fight financial crime. I am thrilled to join this group of extraordinary people to help the company achieve its vast potential.”

This announcement follows ComplyAdvantage’s recent acquisition of Golden and continued product momentum. The company was again placed in G2’s Leader Quadrant for Anti-Money Laundering solutions, recognizing the consistently strong customer feedback on its products.    

About ComplyAdvantage

ComplyAdvantage is the financial industry’s leading source of AI-driven financial crime risk data and fraud detection technology. ComplyAdvantage’s mission is to neutralize the risk of money laundering, terrorist financing, corruption, and other financial crime. More than 1,300 enterprises in 80 countries rely on ComplyAdvantage to understand the risk of who they’re doing business with through the world’s only global, real-time database of people and companies. The company identifies thousands of risk events daily from millions of structured and unstructured data points. 

ComplyAdvantage has five global hubs in New York, Lisbon, London, Singapore, and Cluj-Napoca and is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Goldman Sachs, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Index Ventures, and Balderton Capital. Learn more at complyadvantage.com.

For information:

ComplyAdvantage

Will Thompson

william.thompson@complyadvantage.com

The post ComplyAdvantage Prepares for Next Phase of Growth, Hires Paul Kizakevich as CRO appeared first on ComplyAdvantage.

[New York, NY – April 24, 2024] — ComplyAdvantage, a leader in financial crime intelligence, today announced its acquisition of Golden (Golden Recursion Inc). Golden is a San Francisco-based innovator automating the construction of one of the world’s largest knowledge graphs, which shows interconnected data points and their relationships for the purpose of analyzing complex information.  

Financial institutions and other regulated entities are required by law to ensure the people and organizations they choose to do business with are legitimate and that the transactions they facilitate are legal. ComplyAdvantage uses AI and machine learning to parse through a continuously updated database of entities to give clients the most accurate 360-degree view of financial crime risk. As clients respond to alerts, a feedback loop continuously enriches the insights ComplyAdvantage provides. Golden’s data extraction and disambiguation using sophisticated natural language processing will bring additional disparate data sources into ComplyAdvantage’s data ingestion layer to provide clients with even more comprehensive real-time financial crime risk insights.

As part of the acquisition, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) joins an illustrious group of leading technology investors, including Goldman Sachs, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Index Ventures, and Balderton Capital.

This announcement comes on the back of continued momentum for ComplyAdvantage as the scale-up continues its impressive growth, significantly expanding its client roster since the last fundraising round led by Goldman Sachs. The acquisition also strengthens ComplyAdvantage’s foothold in North America, with Golden bringing an extensive base of US customers.

“Delivering AI-enriched financial crime insights to our customers through a best-in-class user experience built on the most interconnected data has been our north star at ComplyAdvantage since day one. The acquisition of Golden is a critical milestone on that journey,” said Vatsa Narasimha, CEO of ComplyAdvantage. “We are excited to welcome their talented team to the ComplyAdvantage family, alongside a16z, who bring powerful expertise as we embark on the next phase of our growth journey.”

Jude Gomila, Golden founder and CEO, who will join ComplyAdvantage as a board observer and special advisor, added: “I have known Charlie Delingpole, the founder of ComplyAdvantage, since 2005, and I am thrilled to bring together our capabilities. By combining our experienced team of AI and large language model (LLM) specialists with ComplyAdvantage’s industry-leading data science team, we are creating a global team of data experts. Together, I’m confident we will transform financial crime risk management for businesses worldwide.”

About ComplyAdvantage

ComplyAdvantage is the financial industry’s leading source of AI-driven financial crime risk data and fraud detection technology. ComplyAdvantage’s mission is to neutralize the risk of money laundering, terrorist financing, corruption, and other financial crime. More than 1,000 enterprises in 75 countries rely on ComplyAdvantage to understand the risk of who they’re doing business with through the world’s only global, real-time database of people and companies. The company identifies thousands of risk events daily from millions of structured and unstructured data points. 

ComplyAdvantage has five global hubs in New York, London, Singapore, Cluj-Napoca, and Lisbon and is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Goldman Sachs, Ontario Teachers, Index Ventures, and Balderton Capital. Learn more at complyadvantage.com.

For information:

ComplyAdvantage

Rica Squires

rica.squires@complyadvantage.com

The post ComplyAdvantage Acquires Golden, Expanding Financial Crime Intelligence Offering appeared first on ComplyAdvantage.

• 89% of consumers express concern about fraud, but only 40% are comfortable with banks using AI to fight financial crime.
• Two-thirds (66%) of financial industry respondents think the use of AI by fraudsters to enhance the scale and sophistication of cyberattacks poses a growing threat.
• 1 in 4 (23%) consumers report being the victim of fraud in the last three years, with millennials (age 27-42) the hardest hit at 31%.
• The annual report interviews 600 banking and financial services compliance professionals and 3000 consumers.

LONDON, NEW YORK, January 17th 2024  

ComplyAdvantage has launched its annual report into fraud, money laundering, and financial crime: The State of Financial Crime 2024. The report identifies the criminal use of artificial intelligence (AI) as an emerging fraud challenge while revealing that most financial institutions are investing in technology to combat this growing threat. However, a majority of consumers remain uncomfortable with AI, even when it is being used to protect them.   

“Today, AI is being utilized by both criminals – who are using it as new ways to defraud customers – and institutions, who are using it to stay ahead of fraudsters and defend their customers,” said Vatsa Narasimha, CEO of ComplyAdvantage. “We know from our work with financial institutions around the world that AI-based technologies can significantly enhance the fight against financial crime. We see a tremendous opportunity for banks to show consumers how these new technologies and processes like explainable AI are being used to safeguard their finances.”

AI: Fighting the emerging threat 

• Two-thirds (66%) of financial industry respondents think the use of AI by fraudsters and other criminals poses a growing cybersecurity threat. Risks include deepfakes, sophisticated cyber hacks, and the use of generative AI to create malware. 
• Banks and other financial institutions are increasing their defenses against these threats, with 86% of respondents saying their company is investing in new technologies.
• However, only 53% of financial industry respondents said they prioritize explaining their use of AI to their customers.

“Whether they use AI to identify fraud patterns, analyze networks, or streamline processes, banks can take the lead on what we believe will be a key trend in 2024: explainability. Namely, the ability of financial institutions to demonstrate to their customers how and why AI models have taken decisions that affect them,” continued Narasimha. “If compliance leaders are concerned about how customers will receive this information, our survey suggests they should be optimistic. 65 percent of consumers told us they are open to banks sharing their transactional details with other banks if it helps identify fraud patterns. So clearly, consumers understand that new, more innovative approaches are required to address our financial crime challenges. We would expect this percentage to increase further once the benefits of AI for improving financial crime detection are more widely know.”

Ongoing problem of payment fraud with millennials hardest hit

One example of growing criminal sophistication highlighted in the survey is payment fraud. With digital payments continuing to experience double-digit growth year on year, criminals are using new technologies to commit fraud on a mass scale.

• 60% of industry executives surveyed say that payment fraud has remained at the same high levels over the last 12 months, with 8% reporting an increase.
• Nine out of ten consumers surveyed (89%) expressed anxiety about being a possible victim of fraud.
• 1 in 4 consumers (23%) report being the victim of fraud in the last three years, with millennials (age 27-42) the hardest hit at 31%.

When asked what kinds of fraud they were the victims of, the most common responses were:

• Credit card fraud (59%)
• Identity theft and phishing (21%)
• Employment scams (12%)
• Investment fraud (10%) 

“Millennials have embraced digital payments and mobile banking, which dominate how we access banking services today. The scale of fraud amongst this generation demonstrates how quickly criminals exploit technology and changes in consumer behavior,” said Narasimha. “Every compliance executive we surveyed said that they are either currently participating in an authorized push payment (APP) program or will in the near future. With APP fraud continuing to rise, we expect this to become a big priority for regulators and financial institutions in 2024.”

One in five consumers admit to “friendly fraud”

At least one in five of the consumers surveyed admitted to at least one behavior that is described as “friendly fraud.” Indicators of this include: 

• Disputing a payment after receiving an inadequate response from a merchant (21%). 
• Disputing a payment that they later realized was legitimate (12%).
• Claiming a debit or credit card refund despite not returning the item (9%).

“The surprisingly high level of ‘friendly fraud’ uncovered in our survey shows just how widespread and complex fighting fraud can be when consumers can – even inadvertently – commit behavior that may raise a red flag with their bank,” said Iain Armstrong, Regulatory Affairs Practice Lead for ComplyAdvantage.

About ComplyAdvantage

ComplyAdvantage is the financial industry’s leading source of AI-driven financial crime risk data and fraud detection technology. ComplyAdvantage’s mission is to create a safer, stronger financial system by providing companies with the information and insight they need to detect and prevent money laundering and other financial crimes. More than 1000 enterprises in 75 countries rely on ComplyAdvantage to understand the risk of who they’re doing business with through the world’s only global, real-time database of people and companies. The company identifies thousands of risk events daily from millions of structured and unstructured data points. G2 and leading industry analysts have recognized ComplyAdvantage as a leader in AML services. 

ComplyAdvantage has four global hubs in New York, London, Singapore, and Cluj-Napoca and is backed by Goldman Sachs, Ontario Teachers, Index Ventures, and Balderton Capital. Learn more at complyadvantage.com.

For information:

ComplyAdvantage

Rica Squires

rica.squires@complyadvantage.com

The post Technology is creating new fraud frontiers – but consumers don’t want AI to protect them appeared first on ComplyAdvantage.

LONDON, NEW YORK, December 6 2023 

Today, ComplyAdvantage announced the four trends it believes will shape the financial crime landscape in 2024. Following conversations with regulators, industry leaders, and innovative financial institutions worldwide, the company’s team of regulatory affairs experts predict that the next 12 months will be defined by significant challenges posed by technology and international turmoil.

“As 2023 draws to a close, financial crime risk professionals are already contending with increasing geopolitical turmoil, economic volatility, and rapidly changing criminal behavior. Next year, with more than 40 national elections, a growing focus on terrorist financing, and continued technological development, these issues will come to a head. However, there is a huge opportunity to bring together disparate data and what otherwise might be weak risk signals to identify financial crime patterns that cut across these challenges. Advancements in technology, such as machine learning, allow us to use big data in this way. I expect to see lots of exciting innovations in this space through 2024,” said Vatsa Narasimha, CEO, ComplyAdvantage.

Trend #1 – Rooting out terrorist financing will drive greater scrutiny of transaction flows and alternative payment mechanisms

The war in Gaza, ongoing unrest in Nigeria, coups in West and Central Africa, and the military junta in Myanmar demonstrate that watchlists aren’t enough to cut off funding for terrorists and uprisings. More needs to be done to identify and stop the financing pipelines that are supporting violent and repressive regimes around the globe. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and the United Nations have identified cryptocurrencies and crowdfunding platforms as key sectors terrorists use to raise money, increasing the likelihood of regulatory oversight in the new year.

“The crowdfunding sector has created a fast and easy way for members of the public to raise money for everything from worthy causes to medical treatments and dream vacations. Unfortunately, these same platforms are also being used to channel money to some of the biggest terrorist organizations around the globe. Tech and financial services companies need to step up their efforts to accurately identify their customers and confirm where their money is really going,” said Alia Mahmud, Global Regulatory Affairs Practice Lead for ComplyAdvantage.

Trend #2 – AI will move sanctions enforcement beyond watchlist screening to identify risk signals in the sanctioned individual’s network

Sanctions are one of the best tools governments have to deter financial bad actors, but enforcement needs to move beyond watchlist screening to implement enforcement based on connected risk signals. With ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, policymakers will re-examine the efficacy of their sanctions programs to increase the pressure on persons and entities connected to sanctioned officials who may be enabling them to evade restrictions. By looking at risk data points collectively – identity, business associations, transaction activity – banks and other financial institutions can identify a strong risk signal of suspicious activity. Solving financial crime isn’t just a screening problem; it is a network problem, and regulators will expect companies to leverage new technologies to treat it as such.

“With unlimited time and resources, financial institutions could uncover any and all risky connections a sanctioned person has. But that’s not realistic. Artificial intelligence (AI) combined with rich data, graph analytics, and oversight has the potential to create a defense network that would give sanctions the teeth to cut off the money that funds terrorists, wars, human trafficking, and other crimes,” continued Mahmud.

Trend #3 – Discussion about AI will shift to managing bias, modeling, and transparency

The benefits AI brings to fraud and AML risk detection were such a focus in 2023 that adoption has grown significantly. As this continues through 2024, the conversation will shift to how and where these models are used, emphasizing training and transparency.   

“As we head into 2024, the question is no longer if companies invest in AI, but what kinds of skills their analysts need to ensure that the models they use are effective and that they can justify decisions that they make to auditors,” said Iain Armstrong, Regulatory Affairs Practice Lead for ComplyAdvantage. “Key skillsets such as data preprocessing, model performance monitoring and optimization, and experience in automated decisioning strategies will be in demand. Staff in existing anti-financial crime roles will benefit massively from gaining a base-level understanding of machine learning and AI. Companies that invest in staff training in this area will reap the dividends.”

Trend #4 – In the fight against fraud, there will be increasing demand for technology companies to stop fraud at the source

While financial Institutions have a clear obligation to protect their customers from financial scams, including educating them about the latest fraud tactics, implementing robust fraud detection systems, and providing timely communication in the event of a scam, the burden of combating AI-powered scams should not rest solely on banks. A study by UK Finance found that 61% of all authorized pushed payment (APP) fraud was connected to Meta (owner of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram). As APP continues to grow, consumers will expect tech companies to provide safeguards at the source of most scams. This is why the experts at ComplyAdvantage think that there will be increased pressure in the coming year – from consumers and regulators – for technology companies to take a greater role in policing the activities on their platforms. 

“Platforms provided by big tech and telecoms companies often serve as the initial point of contact between fraudsters and victims, so those companies also have a responsibility to do everything they can to stop scams at the source,” said Armstrong. “We think there should be an increased focus on tech companies working with financial institutions to identify scams, develop more effective fraud detection tools, and implement stricter policies to prevent the spread of fraudulent content on their platforms. Any legislation around fraud and the application of AI should take this into account.”

For more information on these issues and others, visit the ComplyAdvantage blog.

About ComplyAdvantage

ComplyAdvantage is the financial industry’s leading source of AI-driven financial crime risk data and fraud detection technology. ComplyAdvantage’s mission is to neutralize the risk of money laundering, terrorist financing, corruption, and other financial crime. More than 1000 enterprises in 75 countries rely on ComplyAdvantage to understand the risk of who they’re doing business with through the world’s only global, real-time database of people and companies. The company identifies thousands of risk events daily from millions of structured and unstructured data points. 

ComplyAdvantage has four global hubs in New York, London, Singapore, and Cluj-Napoca and is backed by Goldman Sachs, Ontario Teachers, Index Ventures, and Balderton Capital. Learn more at complyadvantage.com.

For information:

ComplyAdvantage

Rica Squires

rica.squires@complyadvantage.com

The post International Conflict and Emerging Technologies Drive ComplyAdvantage Experts’ Financial Crime Trends for 2024 appeared first on ComplyAdvantage.

(London) 22 August 2023 – ComplyAdvantage, the leading financial crime intelligence company, has joined the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Independent Software Vendor (ISV) Accelerate Program, a co-sell program for AWS partners that provides software solutions that run on or integrate with AWS. The program helps AWS partners drive new business by directly connecting participating ISVs with the AWS Sales organization. 

The AWS ISV Accelerate Program provides ComplyAdvantage with co-sell support and benefits to meet customer needs by working with AWS sellers globally, who service millions of active AWS customers. Co-selling provides better customer outcomes and assures mutual commitment from AWS and ComplyAdvantage. 

“We’re excited to be strengthening our relationship with AWS,” said Oliver Furniss, Chief Product Officer of ComplyAdvantage. “Joining the ISV Accelerate Program allows ComplyAdvantage to streamline the delivery of our financial crime solutions to businesses much in need. We’re excited to go to market with AWS and look forward to building relationships with new customers as a result of this program.”

Further, ComplyAdvantage is offering its Sanctions, PEPs, Adverse Media, Customer Screening and Monitoring solution via the AWS Marketplace with other solutions including Transaction Screening to follow. AWS Marketplace is a managed software catalogue that allows businesses to easily purchase and invoice software from trusted vendors.

“Listing via AWS Marketplace is an exciting development for ComplyAdvantage,” continued Furniss. “AWS gives potential customers fast access to the solutions we offer that they and their customers will benefit from as well as empowering them to leverage their committed cloud spend easily. It’s a great fit for customers that have gone down the EDP model road for procuring solutions.  More and more customers are interested in buying through marketplaces these days anyways, so it just makes sense for ComplyAdvantage to be there.”

As well as offering limited self-service subscription packages, ComplyAdvantage will also be offering private offer subscriptions for those who want to work with ComplyAdvantage to develop a bespoke commercial solution package and to enable them to invoice centrally through AWS.

About ComplyAdvantage

ComplyAdvantage is the financial industry’s leading source of AI-driven financial crime risk data and fraud detection technology. ComplyAdvantage’s mission is to neutralize the risk of money laundering, terrorist financing, corruption, and other financial crime. More than 1000 enterprises in 75 countries rely on ComplyAdvantage to understand the risk of who they’re doing business with through the world’s only global, real-time database of people and companies. The company identifies thousands of risk events daily from millions of structured and unstructured data points. 

ComplyAdvantage has four global hubs in New York, London, Singapore, and Cluj-Napoca and is backed by Goldman Sachs, Ontario Teachers, Index Ventures, and Balderton Capital. Learn more at complyadvantage.com.

For information:

ComplyAdvantage

Rica Squires

rica.squires@complyadvantage.com

The post ComplyAdvantage Joins AWS ISV Accelerate Program and AWS Marketplace appeared first on ComplyAdvantage.

Criminals have never had more avenues through which to defraud people. This has been fuelled by the proliferation of technology ranging from instant messaging to new forms of remittance, like P2P and real-time payments.

That’s why ComplyAdvantage, the leader in financial crime intelligence, today announces the launch of Fraud Detection, its new solution that uses machine learning algorithms to detect and prevent the menace of transaction-related fraud.

“Fraudsters are fast and creative, always looking for new vulnerabilities they can exploit. That’s why fraud is one of the most commonly experienced crimes affecting people every day, causing billions in losses to consumers and businesses,” says Oliver Furniss, chief product officer for ComplyAdvantage.

“Banks and other financial institutions are constantly playing catch-up. Fraud Detection gives them an effective new way to monitor the millions of transactions they process every day and stop criminal activity in its tracks.”

Catching All Major Payment Fraud Scenarios

Fraud Detection identifies over 50 of the most prevalent payment fraud scenarios faced by banks and other financial institutions through the millions of transactions they process every day. The product detects and flags fraud typologies including Account Take Over (ATO), Authorised Push Payment Fraud (APP), Synthetic Identity, and Relationship Fraud.

Fraud Detection’s advanced capabilities can also identify “unknown unknowns,” such as fraud typologies that do not match current rule-based scenarios.

When businesses receive an alert to suspicious activity, it comes with a full explanation, streamlining the transaction’s resolution. For example, a transaction could have been flagged because it followed a failed password attempt or because it was at a time of day that wasn’t in keeping with the customer’s location.

This feature sets Fraud Detection by ComplyAdvantage apart in the marketplace.

Holvi, the digital banking service for small businesses, uses Fraud Detection as part of a holistic approach to financial crime risk detection with ComplyAdvantage.

Valentina Butera, head of AML and AFC Operations at Holvi, said: “The convenience of digital banking benefits customers and criminals alike. Technology is developing fast, but so are fraudsters. That’s why selecting Fraud Detection by ComplyAdvantage was a very easy decision for us. We immediately saw that it had the latest machine learning technology and knew that the implementation would be extremely smooth.”

Fighting Crime Using AI & Machine Learning

Fraud Detection uses AI and machine learning algorithms to monitor monetary and non-monetary events and look for patterns that indicate possible risks. This includes identity clustering, using behavioural and personal characteristics to identify accounts that are, for example, controlled by a single individual.

It also combines financial and non-financial events with natural language processing and machine learning, meaning factors such as location and time can be used to identify suspicious transactions in real time.

“Integrity is key to a functioning, successful financial system. Institutions need to know that the transactions they facilitate are legal,” continued Furniss. “Our Fraud Detection solution helps payment providers, banks, and other institutions provide a strong first line of defence, protecting their customers and alleviating the stress and loss criminals cause.”

The post Unrivalled anti-fraud solution launched to take on UK’s £4bn payment fraud problem appeared first on ComplyAdvantage.

Financial crime intelligence company ComplyAdvantage has launched a Fraud Detection solution that uses machine learning algorithms to detect and prevent transaction fraud.

The launch comes at a time when criminals leverage numerous avenues to defraud people, fueled by the proliferation of tech ranging from instant messaging to new forms of remittance of the likes of peer-to-peer (P2P) and real-time payments. Having this knowledge as its basis, ComplyAdvantage looks to take on payment fraud with the new AI-powered solution.

ComplyAdvantage and Fraud Detection

Oliver Furniss, Chief Product Officer for ComplyAdvantage said that fraudsters are both fast and creative and on the constant lookout for vulnerabilities they can exploit, this being why fraud is among the most experienced crimes affecting people daily and resulting in losses worth billions for consumers and businesses alike. Per their statement, as banks and other FIs are ‘playing catch-up’, Fraud Detection looks to provide them with a method for monitoring transactions and stopping criminal activity ‘in its tracks’.

Per the press release, Fraud Detection helps identify over 50 of the most common payment fraud scenarios banks and FIs are faced with through the millions of transactions they process daily. The solution can detect and flag fraud typologies including account takeover (ATO), authorised push payment fraud (APP), synthetic identity, and relationship fraud. What is more, its advanced capabilities can identify ‘unknown unknowns’, meaning fraud typologies that do not match existing rule-based scenarios.

When businesses are provided with an alert to suspicious activity, it comes with a complete explanation, simplifying the transaction’s resolution. To exemplify, a transaction could have been flagged due to it following a failed password attempt or because it was at a time of day that wasn’t in accordance with the customer’s location. The feature is believed to help set apart Fraud Detection by ComplyAdvantage in the marketplace.

Furthermore, Fraud Detection leverages AI machine-learning algorithms to monitor both monetary and non-monetary events and search for patterns that indicate possible risks. This consists of identity clustering, using behavioural and personal characteristics to identify accounts, and it also combines financial and non-financial events with natural language processing and machine learning, making it possible to use factors like location and time to identify suspicious activity in real-time.

The post ComplyAdvantage launches Fraud Detection solution appeared first on ComplyAdvantage.