Marit Rødevand, CEO at Strise, in the company HQ.
Strise / Andreas Turau
The Norwegian anti-money laundering (AML) software company Strise received on September 25th, the Oslo Innovation Award at the opening Ceremony of Oslo Innovation Week, in acknowledgment of their achievement in developing cutting-edge AI tools that help catch financial criminals quicker and reestablish trust in financial institutions.
Financial crimes such as frauds are on the rise and as organised crime infiltrate in society, authorities consider it a threat to national security in many countries. The Western world is now as well implementing the eleventh sanctions package against Russia.
“This award is a tribute to our amazing team (…). We have created something that solves significant issues for regulated industries and fundamentally changes challenging anti-money laundering processes into a competitive advantage for our customers,” said Marit Rødevand. CEO of Strise, when receiving the prize held by Oslo Business Region.
The award is presented to the Oslo-based company that is able to demonstrate the ability to be both ethical and socially responsible, solving problems that create value both for business and society. The jury deemed it the winner for its opportunities for expansion into other sectors and for promoting ethical and social responsibility among end users.
For the startup it is important that some players remain outside the financial system: “Financial criminals are start using AI tools. They don’t care about data privacy or GDPR. They really use everything available and we want to help banks try to play this role of police and catch the criminals, while doing this job efficiently and complying with regulations,” continued Rødevand.
Over the past decade, regulatory bodies worldwide have taken significant steps to enforce stringent measures, mandating that financial institutions conduct rigorous customer checks and anti-money laundering procedures. However, recent years have witnessed a troubling trend of high-profile scandals, as well in the Nordics, coming to light within the financial sector.
These scandals have partly eroded public trust but have also exposed weaknesses in the systems designed to safeguard the integrity of the banking industry. As a result of these scandals, many financial institutions have found themselves facing substantial fines and penalties, further amplifying the urgency for more effective regulatory oversight and compliance mechanisms.
How AI for AML works
The company raised from a spinoff research the founders were conducting at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. “We did not start as experts in anti money laundering, I did not dream to work in compliance,” laughed Marit Rødevand, saying that the team started collaborating with a bank institute in Norway, who thought their research on network models and AI can help them with the company’s AML work.
The three founders then decided to buy shares from University of Trondheim in 2019, and refine the software product they were intending to develop and release. So far many financial institutions in the Nordics have adopted their tools, starting from the Norwegian Sparebank, which had supported the project since its early stages.
The company solves two main issues that financial institutions have right now: financial data overload and lack of streamlining processes. Their AI powered software is able to analyze and review data efficiently cutting manual work and handing results to humans that can do some investigation digging further with the help of an intuitive interface.
Strise has been working with AI for a long time, but with the release of ChatGPT, now this technology is on everyone’s radar: “That is good because AI will have a huge impact in AML and knowing your customers’ processes. There’s a big shift now happening in this field and those who are adopting these tools such will really see the benefits and become the winners,” told Rødevand.
The announcement of the prize, comes days after the startup announced its $10.8m Series A funding round lead by investing group Atomico in the U.K., the next market Strise is planning to enter, after the Nordics.
“But at the end (our business) is not just compliance, it’s actually fighting crime. I think now in Europe, especially with the war in Ukraine, with implementation of the sanctions packages, it’s becoming more and more to like the public’s awareness that these are important things to do correctly,” concluded Rødevand.