FAQs on the use of AI as a tool to accelerate effectiveness in fighting financial crime by Financial Institutions

The Global Coalition to Fight Financial Crime established a Technology and Innovation Experts Working Group in 2022, inviting leading experts and practitioners to consider amongst other things, “the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a tool to accelerate effectiveness in fighting financial crime”. In this paper published today, the experts group have focussed on Financial Institutions and have formulated and answered 10 important questions (FAQ’s) which reveal the state of thinking which should overall encourage further support in the years to come.

The opportunity to use AI to fight financial crime including money laundering is potentially far reaching. We are already seeing successfully deployed use cases and expect to see more as the opportunities become available to more and the challenges inherent in this area are addressed. The use of AI in fighting financial crime including money laundering, will benefit from a broader acceptance and use of AI in other areas, where public and private sector leaders see significant benefits and introduce other successful programs, such that the anti financial crime space is not an outlier.

Whilst we are convinced that AI will play a major role in the future of fighting financial crime, including combatting money laundering, questions around success will depend just as much on the partnerships that are formed, data pools that can be accessed, the selection of AI types used, the activity being transformed, the implementation of the solution and the feedback and control environments put in place to track progress and minimise bias and unintended consequences.

The GCFFC wishes to thank all the experts, with particular thanks to Laura Hutton and Felix Hoddinott from Quantexa, Dan Margetts and Joceyln Norval from ING, Wolfgang Berner & Felix Berkham from Hawk AI, Phale McMillan from NatWest, and Karim Rajwani, an advisor, as well as the reviewers of this paper. In addition, we thank David Wilson and Markus Schulz, the co-chairs of the Experts in Technology working group.

The full paper on the frequently asked questions on the use of AI as a tool to accelerate effectiveness in fighting financial crime in the private sector for Financial Institutions can be downloaded below.