How Does Google’s New Tool Work?
Google Cloud aims to set its tool apart by doing away with rules-based programming, which is typically used to set up and maintain AML surveillance programs.
The United Nations estimates about 2-5% of the global gross domestic product or roughly $2 trillion is laundered annually, and despite billions of dollars invested in the anti-money-laundering systems over the past few decades, over 95% of system-generated alerts are closed as “false positives” in the first phase of review.
Google Cloud’s tool provides a consolidated machine learning-generated risk score as an alternative. Transactional patterns, network behavior, and Know-Your-Customer data form the risk score to identify instances of high-risk retail and commercial customers.
Using this approach, Google Cloud said that its AI tool cut the number of alerts HSBC received by more than 60%. HSBC’s “true positives” went up by two to four times, suggesting higher accuracy. Among its other notable users are Brazil’s Banco Bradesco and Denmark’s digital bank Lunar.
Google’s AI Push Gains Momentum
Large technology companies such as Microsoft (MSFT) and Amazon (AMZN) are competing with each other to roll out new (AI) products and applications, Google had a shaky start with the launch of its Bard chatbot, but has since gone on to unveil multiple AI-driven applications, including for maps, searches and advertising campaigns.