- Mizuho International selected SymphonyAI’s Sensa to enhance AML detection within its European Capital Markets Division.
- Sensa’s machine learning models– including changes in behavior, risk similarities, anomaly detection, and hotspot identification– help organizations detect money laundering activity.
- Sensa operates under SymphonyAI, which acquired the company in 2019.
Mizuho International selected SymphonyAI’s Sensa to bolster its fight against Anti-Money Laundering (AML). Specifically, the London-based securities and investment banking arm of Mizuho Financial Group will use Sensa to enhance AML detection within its European Capital Markets Division.
Sensa leverages advanced machine learning models that include changes in behavior, risk similarities, anomaly detection, and hotspot identification. The company combines these models with its set of scenario rules to help firms detect money laundering risk. With 46 patents and $100 million in research and development, Sensa’s technology won Aite-Novarica Group’s 2021 Fraud & AML Impact Innovation Award and is a top 10 DARPA innovation. The company was founded in 2008 and has since garnered $106 million in funding from the likes of Kleiner Perkins, Khosla Ventures, and others.
“We are thrilled to be deploying industry-leading AML transaction monitoring (TM) capabilities. Our next-gen AML TM strategy sought a more refined rule detection and advanced AI solution to find real AML risk and reduce false positives and analyst review times by holistic scoring. We needed a solution that helps analysts, through user interfaces, to deliver all the information needed to expedite investigations,” said Mizuho EMEA’s Chief Compliance Officer Dinesh Joshi. “SensaAML will make a significant difference in our long-held fight against money laundering. Our financial crime team will be empowered and more effective.”
SymphonyAI, the company behind Sensa, offers AI SaaS solutions for enterprises across a range of verticals, including retail, consumer packaged goods, finance, manufacturing, media, and IT/enterprise service management. Founded in 2017, the California-based company acquired Sensa in 2019 for an undisclosed amount.
The topic of AI– specifically generative AI– has received a lot of attention since Open AI launched its consumer-facing ChatGPT tool late last year. The fraud and financial crime space is prime for AI enhancement, especially generative AI enhancement. As Bain Capital Ventures Partner Sarah Hinkfuss explained in a recent blog post, “Generative AI can produce new training data to train and re-train fraud models. One of the challenges with piracy and fraud has been the cat and mouse game of security providers building to address the latest exploited weakness, only for fraudsters to find the next weakness. Training models on yet-unseen examples of fraud generated by generative AI provides the opportunity to stay one step ahead.”
Photo by Karim MANJRA on Unsplash