Processing enormous daily transaction volumes meant having to deal with a mountain of sanctions hits. The organization’s screening system used broad name-matching logic, which triggered high false-positive rates, leaving teams struggling to manage the growing workload.
Each hit demanded a highly manual, resource-intensive process. Investigators had to review transaction details, entity background checks, historical records, web research, and Requests for Information (RFIs) which could often take 100+ minutes to complete.
The second challenge involved reviewing potentially dozens of media articles per sanctions hit to determine if flagged content related to the correct individual or entity. This too required time-intensive human review and verification.
They needed a solution that could eliminate false positives and speed up the investigation process.
SymphonyAI conducted a PoC to demonstrate how Symphony Risk Intelligence (SRI), and in particular SRI Agents could solve these challenges by automating many of these manual processes.
Trained on the policies and procedures of the client, SRI Agents were able to automate the following tasks:
Automated entity resolution: Agents analyzed transaction participants (sender, receiver, and sanctions match) by gathering and analyzing publicly available information.
Web research: Agents performed name disambiguation, relationship analysis, and background verification to identify false positives.
Prioritization & escalation: Where sufficient evidence couldn’t be found, Agents flagged cases for human review with detailed justifications that aligned to the client’s policies and procedures.
The PoC delivered significant operational efficiencies and validated the effectiveness of SRI Agents:
50 SRI Agents were run in parallel to demonstrate how effectively the solution would scale to accommodate the huge volumes required. 300+ alerts were adjudicated every hour, saving thousands of investigator hours. What previously took days was now achieved in minutes. The Agents produced a consistent, high-quality report with an adjudication decision for every sanctions hit.
Each decision was backed by deep subject research, including linked sources, and outlined relevant policy and key rationale to streamline investigator assessments.
The success of the PoC confirmed the client’s intention to deploy SRI Agents into live systems. With full access to internal data sources, Agent performance will be further enhanced, enabling even more impressive results to be achieved.
With the PoC demonstrating the transformative power of SRI Agents, the client is excited to scale Agent usage across more compliance workflows, confident in the significant efficiency and effectiveness benefits that can be gained as they progress towards Always-on Compliance.
Absa transforms its financial crime capabilities with AI
Australian bank reduces false positives >47% with AI Overlay for Transaction Monitoring
Cecabank revolutionizes its sanctions screening solution
Large American bank performs sanctions screening on 100M records in 2.5hrs
Leading European bank upgrades investigations, saves €3.5M annually
Leading US insurer seamlessly secures 500,000 daily transactions
The AI-native FinCrime platform designed to help financial institutions move from reactive to proactive risk management.