Refine Intelligence is a company that has developed a novel, AI-based approach for banks to fight money laundering and reduce the growing operational costs of financial crime. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Refine Intelligence CEO and co-founder Uri Rivner to learn more about the company.
Uri Rivner’s Background
Rivner has been working in the world of cybersecurity and fighting financial crime for over 20 years, helping some of the world’s biggest banks fight against fraud and money laundering. Rivner said:
“After serving as Head of New Technologies at security giant RSA, I co-founded BioCatch, a global leader in behavioral biometrics for fraud detection. In 2022, I founded Refine Intelligence, which provides a novel approach to fighting financial crime. We call it ‘catching the good guys,’ and as the name suggests, it is very unique – rather than a better way of detecting money laundering, we focus on the opposite side: the good customers. If banks can quickly understand that an anomaly in a customer account was triggered by a life story such as paying tuition, starting a cash-intensive job, or doing a big renovation project, they won’t need to waste time chasing good customers and can focus on the truly unexplained. Everyone is trying to catch the bad guys, but the result is extremely inefficient. We’re here to change that with out-of-the-box thinking and a really innovative way of looking at the problem.”
Formation of Refine Intelligence
How did the idea for Refine Intelligence come together? Rivner shared:
“I’ve always been inspired by the idea of stopping the worst types of crime, such as terror financing and human trafficking, which are made possible through money laundering. I’m also motivated by the challenge of coming up with new defenses, coping with the ever-changing creativity and adaptability of criminals.”
“There are a couple of personal experiences that led me to make anti-money laundering solutions more effective. The first is that I had a Bitcoin that I sold a few years ago, and my bank refused to deposit the proceeds. I could not get any explanation from the bank other than, ‘We are sorry. Compliance won’t let us.’ This is even after I submitted paperwork to prove the transaction’s legitimate nature. It was very frustrating, and I knew that many others went through similar problems. I was also intrigued by the fact that banks in certain countries use up to 15 percent of the workforce on anti-money laundering (AML) operations and saw the number of people being hired for this purpose grow by a factor of 10 within six or seven years. It was an enormous problem that was only getting bigger, and I knew that something had to be done to solve it.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Rivner explained:
“Refine Intelligence’s AML solutions provide critical context to investigators, helping them significantly reduce handling time for anomalies. For AML teams that are typically overwhelmed by AML alerts, Refine Intelligence offers two key products to help explain customers’ actions:
Refine’s Digital Customer Outreach automates the process of collecting context, such as source of funds and nature of activity, flagged by transaction monitoring as suspicious through a user-friendly digital inquiry. Banks using the system report a 70% response rate and 85% completion rate, and customers complete the inquiry within two minutes, as opposed to weeks when they’re chased for answers over the phone.
Refine’s Life Story Analytics is an AI model trained to scan AML alerts and automatically recognize the specific legitimate activity the customer is doing. The detected life story and the evidence collected by the model is provided to the AML team before they start investigating. This greenflagging process allows the team to rapidly clear away the false alarms and focus on activities that are really unexplained.”
Customer Success Stories
After asking Rivner about customer success stories, he cited:
“Our first customer was Valley Bank, which implemented Digital Customer Outreach, and was able to cut their AML inquiry process with customers from 16 days to two minutes. This reduced customer friction with compliance-related communications and automated a process that previously required branch personnel to chase customers for answers. Valley Bank was so pleased with the success they had, that their venture capital arm, Valley Ventures, decided to invest in Refine Intelligence.”
Funding
After asking Rivner about the company’s funding information, he revealed:
“We announced in November $13 million of seed funding in a round that was led by Glilot Capital Partners and Fin Capital, with participation from SYN Ventures, Valley Ventures (the corporate venture capital arm of Valley Bank), and other investors.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Rivner assessed:
“Banks in North America alone spend nearly 100 billion dollars in operational costs related to compliance. Each bank has a big team of investigators that go through anomalies flagged by AML transaction monitoring and decide which accounts to report to authorities as engaging in suspicious activity. Attempts to solve the problem through better detection models did not really change the game, and AML teams are still growing every year.”
Differentiation From the Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Rivner affirmed:
“Whereas most AML companies focus on bad actors (e.g. criminals engaged in money laundering), Refine Intelligence focuses on ‘greenflagging’ legitimate banking activity. The vast majority of flagged anomalies are caused by legitimate banking activities such as getting a graduation gift, working in a new cash-intensive job, buying a car or doing a big renovation. Refine provides this context to the AML team so they can stop chasing false leads and focus their energy on truly unexplained activities. Our technology doesn’t replace the current AML transaction monitoring system or models, but rather enhances the existing processes and technology.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future company goals? Rivner concluded:
“With our latest round of funding, we will now accelerate expansion within North America and continue to advance the development of our unique greenflagging technology.”
