The media reports that in Canada it is planned to start using artificial intelligence as a tool to combat money laundering.

Donna Achimov, deputy director of the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre (FINTRAC), on Monday, January 8, during a conversation with journalists, said that machine intelligence helps this agency analyze data and record suspicious transactions.

Currently, there is a tendency in Canada to increase the number of suspicious financial operations. During the 2022-2023 financial year, 560,858 similar transactions were detected in this country. This figure is almost five times higher than the number of suspicious transactions recorded in the 2015-2016 financial year.

Last year, FINTRAC increased the scale and intensity of its interaction with banks. This is because between April and September 2023, about three-quarters of suspicious transactions were reported by traditional financial institutions.

A similar situation with operations, the legality of which is in doubt, is observed in the United States. In this country, financial institutions recorded a 43% increase in fraud last year compared to the figure for 2022.

The results of industry research indicate that in the United States, in banks with assets of $5 billion or more, the average cost of fraud increased from $2.3 million to $3.8 million from 2022 to 2023.

Overall, more than 40% of American financial institutions recorded a growth in criminal attacks last year. The increase in the activity of fraudsters provoked a growth in bank losses. In this case, the financial consequences of the crimes are implied.

Against the background of current realities, banks are forced to take measures that enhance their ability to counter fraud. In the context of this activity, solutions providing proactive methods of combating encroachments by criminals are of particular importance. To counter fraud, banks are investing in machine learning technologies and artificial intelligence tools. According to the results of testing in the relevant practical plane, AI was recognized as an effective solution for preventing suspicious transactions.

Currently, in the US 66% of banks with assets of $5 billion or more use machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies to combat fraud. In 2022, the number of financial institutions applying such tools was 34%.

Current trends indicate that the use of artificial intelligence technologies to combat fraud depends on the size of the bank. Among financial institutions with assets ranging from $1 billion to $5 billion, 44% apply AI as an anti-fraud tool. Among banks with assets exceeding $100 billion, the share of organizations using artificial intelligence for the mentioned purposes is 97%.

Hawk AI CEO Tobias Schweiger said in September, during a conversation with media representatives, that the ability of digital intelligence models to learn from new data and contexts will probably be able to ensure that the balance between security and convenience does not shift in one direction. The company’s tool can combine things like sanctions screening and transaction monitoring to combat money laundering and fraud protection.

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