Swiss bank UBS plans to deploy multimillion-pound, artificial
intelligence software to monitor its banking transactions in some
40 countries to fight money laundering.
UBS spokesman Christoph Meier said the software bolsters
anti-money-laundering efforts the bank already had in place, that
allow it to search customer databases for people suspected by law
enforcement agencies of being involved in terrorism or
money-laundering schemes.
"UBS has long had a procedure to look at client transactions to
comply with anti-money-laundering legislation in Switzerland, which
is tough," Meier said. "Then, after 11 September, new dimensions
were added to it."
Jeanne Capachin, an analyst at Meridien Research, said, "Banks are
getting much more serious about the solutions, and they're taking a
good look at the policies in place and the technology they're
using."
UBS is installing software from London-based Searchspace which, it
claimed, could track an individual's every transaction and build
models that UBS can use to alert bank compliance officers to
suspicious activities.
"The compelling part about this software is that it has artificial
intelligence, and it's helping us look for behaviour patterns that
are different from a client's usual behaviour. We can immediately
discover if there is a deviation from a normal behaviour pattern,"
Meier said.
The software costs from £350,000 to £3.5m, depending on the number
of transactions it must track.