Airwallex to improve customer onboarding with AI

The new AI tool reduces false positives in the know your customer process

Airwallex, a global fintech, has unveiled a generative AI tool to improve its know your customer (KYC) and onboarding processes.  

The company reports a 50% reduction in false positives and a 20% increase in the number of customers that pass through the onboarding process without requiring human intervention.  

According to Jacob Dai, Airwallex’s co-founder and chief technology officer, the introduction of generative AI marks a significant leap in accuracy and context awareness for their KYC tools.  

“We’re making it faster and easier for our customers to get up and running with Airwallex while enhancing our ability to detect and prevent fraud on our platform,” Dai said.  

Customers can now onboard with Airwallex in minutes. 

This tool, the first of several to be released, is also attuned to nuances and sensitivities of various languages and cultures, the company said.  

The AI co-pilot, trained on vast amounts of linguistic data, helps Airwallex to navigate these complexities with speed and effectiveness. 

“KYC is that vital first step in our relationship with a customer,” said Dai. Traditionally relying on rules-based analytics and natural language processing, Airwallex encountered a common hurdle—false positives generated by high-risk keyword identification, slowing down the KYC process.  

With generative AI, Airwallex’s models are more sensitive to context and keyword meaning. The model can distinguish between a retailer selling a military-style jacket and a merchant selling prohibited military goods. Or smartphone accessories versus actual smartphones being sold illegitimately. 

In an email interview with FinTech Intel, Elliot Colquhoun, vice president of information security and IT at Airwallex, said: “Over the last 12 months, we’ve been putting AI tools in the hands of teams across our business to organically identify where they have a measurable impact.  

“We see achieving business velocity and security as the same goal. Using Generative AI for KYC is a great example. We have more confidence in the accuracy of our KYC program, while simultaneously allowing new customers to use Airwallex faster.” 

He continued: “We saw an immediate impact from this change and it really justified us retiring the legacy process and continuing to invest in AI as a differentiator and accelerator for our business.”  

Speaking on the potential of AI, he said: “We see a lot of promise in both customer-facing features that deliver more personalised and intuitive experiences and operational processes that benefit from smarter automation tools. It’s a pivotal moment for technologists across industries and we’re excited to be a part of it.” 

Image: © Titima Ongkantong via Canva

Josh Poyser Josh Poyser is an editor at FinTech Intel. He has written about fintech for several years and appeared at FinTech Connect 2023 on the 'Unlocking Success: The Art of Fintech PR' panel.