Over the past years, financial crime tech has risen to prominence, driven by increasing complexity and frequency of financial crimes, stricter regulations and compliance requirements, and technological advancements.
The Global State of Scams 2023 Report by the Global Anti-Scam Alliance (GASA) and ScamAdviser reveals a severe global increase in scams. The study, which surveyed nearly 50,000 people from 43 countries, found that 25.5% of respondents lost money to scams or identity theft in the past year, resulting in an estimated US$1 trillion in financial losses.
Despite 69% of respondents believing they can identify scams, 59% encounter scams monthly and 78% face them annually, with phone calls and SMS messages being the primary methods used by scammers.
Data analytics company LexisNexis estimates that the cost of financial crime compliance in APAC will approach the US$45 billion mark in 2023, showcasing the substantial investment required to meet stringent compliance requirements.
In this context, technology is perceived as a crucial tool for improving the detection and prevention of financial crimes, enhancing operational efficiency, reducing costs, and enabling institutions to adapt to evolving regulatory requirements.
In May, Fintech Global released its inaugural FinCrimeTech50 list, recognizing the world’s leading technology companies fighting money laundering, fraud and financial crime.
The list features the 50 most innovative tech companies offering solutions in financial crime and fraud prevention in the world. These companies were selected by a panel of industry experts and analysts based on their industry significance, growth, innovation and value propositions.
Among the top 50 financial crime tech companies named in FinCrimeTech50 , four originate from APAC and represent the region’s financial crime technology pioneers. Today, we delve into these firms’ offerings, recent strides and contributions to the field.
Arctic Intelligence (Australia)
Headquartered in Sydney, Australia, Arctic Intelligence is a multi-award-winning regtech company specializing in financial crime risk assessment technologies. Founded in late 2015, the company provides regulated entities with tools to manage audit, risk, and compliance programs effectively.
Arctic Intelligence’s AML Accelerate Platform is designed to guide small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in over 30 financial and non-financial industry sectors and over 50 countries to easily conduct money laundering and terrorism financing risk (AML/CTF) assessments, while enabling the evaluation of the design and operation effectiveness of their controls, facilitating the creation of effective AML/CTF programs and policies.
For larger enterprises and the consultants assisting them, Arctic Intelligence offers the Risk Assessment Platform. The platform allows for the customization of methodologies and risk and control models, helping organizations transition from manual, spreadsheet-based approaches to fully automated financial crime risk assessments. It includes a suite of financial and non-financial crime risk domains with hundreds of risk indicators and controls, though users can also integrate their own.
Arctic Intelligence is trusted by a wide range of financial services organizations, from SMEs to multinational corporations, across various industry sectors including banking, insurance, credit unions, foreign exchange (FX), money remittance, digital currencies, wealth and asset management, and gaming. Many professional advisors also use Arctic Intelligence’s technology to assist their clients with financial crime risk assessments and compliance obligations.
IDVerse (Australia)
IDVerse, formerly known as OCR Labs, is an Australian company specializing in identity verification technologies. Founded in 2018, the company’s technology can extract and verify information from most identity documents used globally, checking this information in real-time against local government and credit bureau databases. Its AI-powered process includes a “liveness” check to ensure the person presenting the document is alive and owns the document, eliminating the need for human intervention via agents or call centers.
With its fully automated solution, IDVerse enables rapid global business scaling by verifying new users in seconds using only a face and smartphone, in over 220 countries and territories, with any ID document. The company’s Zero Bias AI technology leverages generative artificial intelligence (gen AI) to train deep neural network systems, ensuring protection against discrimination based on race, age, and gender. IDVerse has achieved 99.99% accuracy in independent lab testing.
IDVerse is trusted by startups, governments, and global enterprises, including Experian, HSBC, Vodafone, BMW, Virgin Money, and ANZ, for borderless and inclusive identity verification. It was the first private Australian company accredited as an identity provider to operate outside the Australian Government’s Digital Identity System under the Trusted Digital Identity Framework (TDIF). Additionally, IDVerse has gained accreditation from the UK’s ACCS for its API for age verification services. The company
IDVerse is headquartered in London and has offices in North America, Asia, and Europe.
Know Your Customer (Hong Kong)
Founded in Hong Kong in 2015, Know Your Customer is an award-winning regtech company specialized in next generation business verification solutions for financial institutions and regulated organizations worldwide. The company aims to transform know-your-customer (KYC) compliance by fully digitizing and streamlining the onboarding process for both corporate and individual customers, improving efficiency and strengthening compliance.
Know Your Customer provides a modular compliance solution that combines an intuitive digital workspace on the market with real-time registry data, seamless integrations and smart automation to transform the essence of the compliance function at its core. The products’ modular design enables efficient customization, as clients can select and implement only the functionalities they really need, all available via Rest API.
The company provides three fully integrated products to tackle critical compliance challenges:
- KYC Workspace, a platform which digitizes and automates the full range of compliance activities across multiple offices, markets, and business functions, utilizing a cloud-native, intuitive interface;
- KYC Data, a solution that offers real-time access to global company registries, integrated AML screening, and global ID verification, providing a robust defense against financial crime; and
- KYC Review, which ensures continuous compliance, offering perpetual KYC refreshes and ongoing AML screening for all corporate and SME customers and their shareholders.
With offices in Hong Kong, Dublin, Singapore, and London, Know Your Customer has established a global presence and a reputation for excellence. The company’s clients span across 11 sectors, including banking, fintech, corporate services, and real estate, and 18 jurisdictions. They are using Know Your Customer’s technology to verify and onboard customers from more than 180 countries.
Transparently.AI (Singapore)
Founded in 2021 and based in Singapore, Transparently.AI provides an AI-based system for the automated detection of accounting manipulation and fraud in companies.
Transparently.AI’s software is trained via machine learning (ML) to detect accounting red flags in corporate balance sheets. It produces a 0-100 risk score which measures the likelihood and extent to which a company is manipulating its accounts. Asset managers, banks, auditors, exchanges and others can use the product as a due diligence tool to help filter for suspicious accounting, fraud in the accounts and weak corporate governance.
Transparently.AI counts one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds, a global commercial bank and one of the Big 4 auditors among its customers.
The three-year-old AI startup announced in February 2024 an investment from US asset-management giant Franklin Templeton, as part of a US$3 million pre-series A funding round. The round valued the startup at US$20 million.
Featured image credit: edited from freepik
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