Technology

AI VS. THE CROOKS: CAN MACHINES BEAT THE FRAUDSTERS?

Published

3 years ago

August 17, 2020

admin

Konstantin Bodragin, Business Analyst and Digital Marketing Officer at Bruc Bond

Over the last couple of decades, AML has taken centre stage in the banking world. Nowadays, AML, shorthand for anti-money laundering, drives strategic planning and organisational structuring. AML concerns keep many a manager up long into the night, as the risks are huge, the penalties for infractions potentially devastating, and the criminals – especially in the era of COVID-19 – ever more enterprising. While the prevention of money laundering is paramount, the weight and risk faced by financial institutions may feel onerous to many. Luckily, the banking landscape is changing rapidly, with automation and AI making the burden significantly lighter to carry.

Banks and financial institutions face a two-pronged problem. On the one hand, the pace of digital payment is growing exponentially. Much of the world’s trade is now conducted through purely digital conduits. But it’s not only the volume of digital payments and users growing, so is the speed of transactions, with instant payment systems being deployed around the world.

The increases in speed and volume are of course good news for the bottom line, but require significant resources to handle effectively. Resources that many in the banking industry are struggling to provide adequately. The industry is shrinking rapidly, with bank closures, mergers & acquisitions, and a massive reduction in the workforce dominating headlines in the last decade. COVID-19 has only accelerated the trend, with bank after bank announcing imminent layoffs and reductions in trading. With the squeeze on resources, many banks would have struggled to keep up with the increased workload regardless of any other constraints, but here they are faced with the second prong: the complexities of AML.

AML regulations have grown thick and convoluted in recent decades, and with penalties as severe as truly massive fines and personal liability for offending compliance officers, it is taken extremely seriously. And for good reason. Fraudulent and criminal activity is costing the global economy many billions each year, with the lighter end of the spectrum meant to merely enrich the perpetrators, while at the other lies terrorist financing and socially damaging criminality. Nevertheless, it is a significant strain on banks’ already constrained resources, directly at odds with the growing pace of global digital trade.

To alleviate these pains, bankers and financiers of all varieties are scrambling to adopt the newest technologies to combat money laundering effectively, efficiently and with minimal costs. For this, AI seems to be the answer, and everybody wants a piece of the action. In 2020, you would struggle to find a fraud prevention company that doesn’t have the words ‘AI’ or ‘machine learning’ somewhere in its description.

Machine learning, one of the tools underpinning the AI fight against fraud, means the use of algorithms and statistical models to allow computers to perform tasks without specific instructions. In the context of payments, this means allowing computers to make decision related to AML compliance with no human intervention. While letting go of control is a scary prospect for many a financier, it may be the only right thing to do for effective AML implementation, both to prevent money-laundering incidents and to reduce the rate of false positives.

Current statistics indicate that for every fraudulent transaction stopped by a bank’s compliance team, some 20 legitimate transactions are prevented from going through by understandably overcautious compliance officers. Not only does this represent a serious hit to the bank’s bottom line, it wastes whatever precious resources are at the team’s disposal.

With current, manual methods, any suspicious transaction needs to be investigated in a process that can take anywhere from an hour to several days or weeks, often requiring the input of numerous team members and stakeholders across several departments. The cumulative resource drain is palpable, and the end result is that transactions are often rejected not due to any illegality, but because it is simpler, quicker and cheaper to do so. It is simply easier to suspect everyone and reject transactions outright. With AI systems, this process can take an entirely different shape.

Machine learning algorithms learn from human behaviour, create and continuously improve user profiles and use this information to validate transactions. Where this technology shines are with onboarding and transaction verification. Or rather, whenever a known user’s identity needs to be verified. A distinct change in a user’s behaviour is serious cause for alarm and indicates potential fraud, with someone pretending to be a user they’re not.

Unfortunately, AI cannot provide everything we want. When it comes to the cross-border and B2B space, AI is more limited in its uses. While businesses demand increasingly faster account opening and onboarding, the entirety of the process can’t be automated. The problem stems from a difficulty in standardising. Variations in geography, type of business, corporate structures, and even the individuals involved mean that a risk profile must be created for each case individually. Even if the processes could be automated to a higher degree, the risk to reward ratio may mean that the investment in AI isn’t sufficiently attractive. Simply put, financial institutions are rightly anxious about an automated system messing up in complex cases that could lead to massive fines or worse.

Moreover, there exists a question of accountability. When a decision is made by AI, how are you then able to find the exact reason behind why a transaction is not stopped when it should have been – other than to blame it on the algorithm? Using AI makes it very difficult to audit payments, as the fuzzy logic of Machine Learning is almost entirely obscure to us humans.

In short, yes, AI and automation are providing a much-needed breathing room for banks, financial institutions and fintechs looking to alleviate some of the AML burden. However, they are no panacea. Real-life, human bankers will stay with us for a while longer. And for those looking for banking with a friendly face, that may not be such a bad thing after all.

Business

In-platform solutions are only a short-term enhancement, but bespoke AI is the future

Published

15 hours ago

September 27, 2023

editorial

By Damien Bennett, Global Director, Principal Consultant, Incubeta

If you haven’t heard anyone talking about artificial intelligence (AI) yet, then where have you been? Conversations about AI and its advantages to society have been a key talking point over recent months, with advances being made in the generative AI race and ChatGPT opening a whole plethora of possibilities. Many have highlighted the advantages of AI, but notably it’s ability to create human-like content.

But these discussions have only scratched the surface of what AI is capable of doing. It is for far more than just essay writing, adding Eminem to your rave and photoshopping dogs into pictures.

In marketing, we have been using AI for years, for everything from analyzing customer behaviors to predicting market changes. It’s enabled us to segment customers, forecast sales and provide personalized recommendations, having a huge impact on how our industry works.

It is even, for the more savvy marketers of the world, becoming a key tool in maximizing budget efficiency – which is apt, considering over 70% of CMOs believe they lack sufficient budget to fully execute their 2023 strategy.

Now, as AI becomes more intelligent, the number of efficiencies it can unlock continues to rise. Not only can it help brands get the most out of their available resources and identify any areas of waste, but it can also help highlight new opportunities for growth and maximize the impact of your budget allocation.

The trick, however, is to veer away from the norm of using in-platform solutions with a one-size-fits-all approach and create your own, bespoke solutions that are tailored to your business needs.

Pitfalls of in-platform solutions

In-platform solutions aren’t by any means a bad thing. In fact, built-in AI tools have become increasingly popular, owing to their ease of integration, user-friendly interfaces and minimal set up requirements. They come pre-packaged with the platform, offering the user the ability to leverage AI technologies without the need for in-depth technical expertise or the upfront cost of building a solution from scratch.

However, the streamlined and accessible nature of in-platform AI solutions comes at the expense of complexity and customization. They are designed to serve a broad user base, but for the most part are built using narrow AI solutions with predefined features and workflows.

This makes them great for assisting with common AI tasks, but they lack the flexibility to tailor functionality towards unique business requirements or innovative use cases, limiting the potential efficiencies and cost savings that can be unlocked. Additionally, if a business’ competitors are using the same platform, they are probably using the same AI solution, meaning any strategic advantage gained from these will be reduced.

Bespoke AI solutions, on the other hand, may carry a higher initial investment – but can offer a significantly more attractive ROI over a short amount of time.

Why customized and adapted AI is the key

The difference between bespoke AI and in-platform solutions is similar to that between home cooked food and a microwave meal. Yes, it is more time consuming to prepare, and yes it likely carries more of an upfront cost, but the end result is going to be far more appealing and will carry more long-term value (financially… not nutritionally).

That’s because bespoke solutions, by nature, will have been tailored to address your brands specific needs and challenges. These custom-built tools allow for much greater efficiencies by streamlining workflows across different channels, automating more complex tasks, and providing deeper, more relevant insights.

The increased level of optimization can significantly improve productivity and reduce operational costs over time, offering a higher ROI. The increased flexibility of bespoke AI also allows brands to implement innovative use cases that can significantly differentiate them from their competitors.

The data analyzed can be specifically chosen to match business requirements, as can the outputs of the AI tool, providing a significant advantage when understanding and acting on the insights provided.

Additionally, these tools are, by nature, more scalable. They can be updated, upgraded and expanded as needs change, ensuring they continue delivering value as the business grows. They can also be designed to integrate with any existing IT infrastructure, from CRM systems and databases to marketing platforms and sales tools – leading to more efficient and effective decision-making.

Managing finances with AI

It’s no secret that AI in marketing automation has, and will continue to, revolutionize the way marketing is done. It has a bright, if slightly terrifying, future and can help CMOs to unlock new efficiencies, maximize the impact of their budgets and increase their ROI. And as this technology becomes more advanced, its impact will only increase.

But we already know that…and so does everyone else.

So, in order for businesses to make themselves stand out from the crowd , they must look to fully adopt the power of AI. Creating a customized and unique AI solution could be the way to set yourself apart from your competitors. A bespoke AI tool can provide brands and businesses with features unique to them and their business needs. As a result, companies will benefit from more useful data and better results to make more data-driven decisions for their business. Ultimately, this will help brands to maintain a competitive edge over their competitors, deliver ROI and most importantly optimize their budgets.

Business

Exploring the Transformative Potential and Ethical Challenges of AI in Wealth Management

Published

2 days ago

September 26, 2023

admin

Nuno Godinho, Group CEO of Industrial Thought Group

In recent years, the advent of AI has sparked both excitement and scrutiny within the Wealth Management industry. The technology’s capabilities, including but certainly not limited to generative AI algorithms like ChatGPT, offer a new dimension to data analysis, market prediction, and portfolio management. However, while it presents a promising avenue for enhancing decision-making and elevating client interaction, AI also carries inherent challenges that demand careful consideration.

Benefits of AI in Wealth Management:

In a world where CX is key, AI enables wealth managers to provide personalised advice, improved portfolio performance, real-time insights, and convenient access to information and support. Previously it has been impossible for advisors to deliver hyper-personalisation at scale; now, AI-driven customisation lets them tailor investment strategies and recommendations to their clients’ unique financial goals, risk tolerance, and investment horizon.

AI algorithms can also analyse vast amounts of data to identify trends and opportunities, resulting in potentially higher returns on investments. And, more widespread use of automation will gradually reduce the cost of wealth management services, meaning higher-quality investment advice at a lower price. This is critical as firms fight to stay relevant for modern investors disillusioned by traditional advisory firms and private banks.

Relationship-wise, there are many other advantages. AI-driven data analytics make it easier to gain a deeper understanding of an investor’s needs, preferences, and behaviours, all of which help to build long-term relationships. Through predictive analytics, firms can differentiate their service and proactively identify new investment opportunities, such as emerging market trends or underperforming assets. At the same time, chatbots and virtual assistants facilitate constant communication to answer queries and increase engagement. By strategically integrating AI technology into their operations, firms have the power to optimise top and bottom lines, strengthen client connections and position themselves for long-term growth.

Navigating the Ethical and Practical Challenges:

While AI holds remarkable potential, major obstacles must be overcome. With AI’s reliance on large amounts of data, ensuring client data confidentiality, managing consent, and complying with global data protection regulations like GDPR are significant challenges. Another issue is algorithmic bias – as AI learns from data, it may inadvertently perpetuate inequalities or biases present in the training datasets used. Vigilance is necessary to ensure that AI systems don’t amplify these issues. A key concern is the absence of standard governance, leading to a lack of accountability and transparency. Black-box algorithms can make decisions without providing clear explanations for their reasoning, making it difficult for clients and regulators to understand and trust AI-driven outcomes. Overall, the responsibility for AI-generated recommendations remains complex, requiring collaborative efforts to establish robust regulatory frameworks.

Striving for Data Integrity and Reliability:

The efficacy of AI-driven solutions hinges on the quality of training dataset they are supplied with and rely upon. Therefore, ensuring accurate, unbiased, and comprehensive datasets is paramount to generating trustworthy insights. The absence of standardised data sharing can lead to skewed results, ultimately impacting the quality of AI-generated advice. Transparency in data usage, validation, and generation reasoning will be pivotal to cultivating client trust and minimising systemic risks, which ties back to the absence of standard governance, as the output from AI-generated advice will only be as good as the data sets provided. We need to understand the “lineage” of all data used and generated by the algorithms. Until the industry can come to some accord on how we plan to use all of our respective data, it will be prone to various biases and fragmented advice, which will lead to liability and reliability issues down the line. It’s worthwhile wondering whether we can see the industry opening up in an age of data equals value.

The Role of Collaborative Partnerships:

Amidst these challenges, collaborative partnerships emerge as a potent avenue. Established wealth management firms can harness the expertise of FinTech AI companies to augment their capabilities while mitigating the risks associated with AI adoption. A symbiotic relationship, where innovative AI solutions are developed by trusted partners, helps safeguard against potential pitfalls and aligns with the pursuit of ethical, data-driven decision-making.

Looking Ahead: Striking a Balance for Sustainable Progress:

As we journey into the AI-powered future of wealth management, it’s evident that a balanced approach is essential. The integration of AI has the potential to expedite the transition to wealth management 4.0, revolutionising personalised client experiences and advisory services. However, this progress must be underpinned by clear ethical guidelines, data integrity, and collaborative partnerships. Striking this equilibrium promises not only a more informed, efficient, and personalised industry but also one that upholds the principles of transparency, accountability, and client trust.

In conclusion, AI’s impact on the wealth and asset management landscape is profound, offering unparalleled insights and opportunities. While navigating challenges will be crucial, a collective effort to harness AI’s power while ensuring its responsible application will pave the way for a resilient, future-forward industry.