U.K. Startup Is Using A.I. to Speed Up Financial Compliance

A U.K. startup that uses artificial intelligence to help banks and other financial firms with anti-money laundering compliance received $8.3 million to fund its expansion in Europe and North America, according to Bloomberg.

The financing for London-based ComplyAdvantage is being lead by British venture capital firm Balderton Capital. The company, which said in a statement it has 200 clients globally, said it would use the money to expand its operations, adding to its current team of about 50 employees. It will also open a sales office in New York this week.

Complying with the growing body of anti-money laundering and know-your-customer regulations around the world is becoming an expensive headache for financial institutions. Consulting firm Accenture says the cost of complying with these rules has risen 50 percent in the past three years as a number of new regulations have come into force around the world. The U.K. Financial Conduct Authority commissioned a report by consulting firm John Howell in 2015 which found that at one large British bank, the cost of compliance per customer had risen from to 300 pounds ($366) per customer from about 65 pounds over the course of the previous two years.

ComplyAdvantage allows financial institutions to search prospective customer names through a proprietary database that includes lists of individuals sanctioned by entities ranging from the U.S. government to the United Nations and lists of known-criminals compiled by organizations like Interpol. It checks names against lists of politicians and government officials.

ComplyAdvantage prices its product according to the volume of searches a customer performs on the system. Customers can chose to simply flag possible issues with a potential customer -- to allow their own systems to quickly reach a yes or no decision -- or they can actually delve into the database to do a more detailed investigation.