OCBC Bank takes AI-m at financial crime
OCBC has the AML instinct
When crime comes calling OCBC Bank won’t be bawling as it has turned to artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) for the big fight.
The Singapore-based bank says: “On any one typical work day, an OCBC Bank anti-money laundering (AML) compliance analyst would log into the bank’s transaction monitoring system and find up to hundreds of potentially suspicious transactions he or she had to review.”
With this kind of time-consuming and ridiculously tedious manual trawl in place, OCBC says it could take days, or even up to a week for particularly complex transactions.
To tackle the “increasing scale and complexity” of AML monitoring, OCBC states it is the first Singapore bank to tap AI and ML learning to combat financial crime. Naturally, this will reduce time.
OCBC’s transaction monitoring team and its fintech unit, Open Vault, conducted a proof of concept (PoC) with Israel-based specialist vendor ThetaRay, which concluded earlier this year.
The bank is now in an extended PoC and pre-implementation phase, involving advanced testing with additional test data. Upon its conclusion, the bank targets to fully implement the technology, which will run in parallel with its existing transaction monitoring system, in Q2 2018.
Back in July, OCBC showed an interest in AI in this sector. It piloted two solutions from a pair of start-ups as it looked to combat money laundering and terrorism financing via AI. The two firms involved – BlackSwan Technologies and Silent Eight – were part of Open Vault.
By the way, a few days ago OCBC’s retail and business banking customers got a boost. They can now log into the bank’s app via a selfie, if they use Apple iPhone X. The bank says it’s the first in Singapore to offer such biometric tech.
