January 2025: Top five AI stories of the month
The topic of artificial intelligence (AI) continues to dominate headlines and narratives throughout the world of fintech.
Here, we take a look back at five of the top AI stories from January, featuring Tandem Bank, Metzler, Gate City Bank and more.
Chainalysis acquires AI fraud detection solution Alterya
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Chainalysis buys Alterya for an undisclosed sum
Chainalysis has acquired Alterya, a fraud detection solution using AI to help financial institutions, fintechs and crypto service providers prevent authorised push-payment (APP) fraud. The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
Alterya’s technology and team will now be integrated into Chainalysis’ blockchain data platform, providing “real-time proactive fraud protection for payments and enhanced fraud detection during KYC for exchanges, blockchains and wallet providers”.
The New York-based firm says it will “continue to build upon Alterya’s collection of fraud identifiers on fiat payment rails” following the acquisition, adding that illicit activity in fiat accounts often serves as “an early red flag before funds move into crypto”.
Gate City Bank selects Lama AI for GenAI-powered loan origination tech
Gate City Bank, based in North Dakota, US, has teamed up with Lama AI to enhance its business lending operations.
The $3.6 billion-asset mutual bank is set to implement the vendor’s loan origination platform, which uses generative AI to “streamline workflows, reduce manual tasks, increase dealflow, and speed up decision-making”, Lama AI says.
Ryan Goellner, EVP of technology and project management at Gate City Bank, says the partnership will enable the bank to “work with greater precision and agility”, with its business lending operations currently including term loans, equipment loans and real estate loans.
Tandem Bank partners Sikoia to streamline income verification processes
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Tandem teams up with Sikoia
UK challenger Tandem Bank has partnered with London-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) fintech Sikoia to streamline income verification processes for faster mortgage decision-making.
Sikoia says the digital bank will utilise its AI-driven Income and Employer Verification solution to “automate key aspects of income verification and document handling processes”.
Integrated via API, the offering extracts and verifies data from payslips, bank statements, and tax returns, enabling customer application assessments in minutes.
Sikoia CEO Alexis Rog says: “This collaboration aims to eliminate administrative burdens, ensure consistent and auditable decision-making, and ultimately enhance the customer experience.”
Caseware acquires Aussie financial document processing start-up Extractly.ai
Caseware, a Canada-based tech provider offering financial reporting, audit, and data analytics solutions, has acquired Aussie document processing solutions provider Extractly.ai for an undisclosed sum.
Founded in 2021, Extractly.ai offers two AI-powered solutions for processing accounting and financial documents – Extractly+ and Validate – which will be integrated into Caseware, along with Extractly.ai CEO Alastair Raphael and the entire Australia-based team.
The deal marks Caseware’s ninth acquisition since Hg Capital acquired majority ownership in late 2020, and comes only weeks after the company snapped up Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) accounting solution LeaseJava.
Germany’s Metzler partners Unique to streamline operational workflows with AI
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Metzler partners Unique for AI tech
German private bank Metzler has partnered with Swiss software start-up Unique for its AI-powered solutions as it looks to utilise the technology to streamline workflows and boost productivity.
Unique says that Metzler, Germany’s second oldest bank founded in 1674, will use its AI tech to enhance “decision-making processes, client engagement, and overall operational efficiency”.
Through the partnership, the bank has deployed a new GenAI platform, MetzlerGPT, which Unique says leverages large language models to provide “comprehensive data-driven insights to all 800 Metzler employees, streamline client work, and automate routine tasks”.