HSBC is bringing in Artificial Intelligence-powered robots to spot money laundering, fraud and terrorist funding.

According to the Financial Times, HSBC is planning to integrate the AI software of Quantexa, a UK-based start-up, to screen the vast amounts of data it holds on customers and their transactions against publicly available data, in the search for suspicious activity.

By the way, the company last year raised USD 3.3m in funding from HSBC and Albion Ventures.


Stung by multibillion-dollar fines in the past decade for failing to stop illegal finance flowing through their accounts, many large banks are partnering with AI specialists as part of efforts to clean up their act.

“Using AI to sift through vast amounts of data also offers the opportunity to save money — banks spend GBP 5bn a year on combating financial crime in the UK alone.

The move comes just months after HSBC froze an account connected to an alleged USD 500m fraud by the son of Angola’s former president,” the edition writes.

According to Jennifer Calvery, the bank’s global head of financial crime threat mitigation, the bank believed in “harnessing technology and data… to get to a place in the future where we understand and can see criminal behavior in as near real time as possible”.

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