Pelican was successful in a competitive proof of concept - demonstrating a high accuracy and success rate for classifying false positives. The AI solution, to be used by the bank to support global sanction screening, is expected to go live before year end.

PelicanSecure Sanctions Self-Learning employs advanced AI technologies to analyse transactions that have been flagged for investigation by the bank’s third-party sanction screening tools. Pelican uses machine learning and natural language processing to understand and interpret human actions, helping to classify and explain the false positives generated by the third-party tools. This allows staff to resolve false positives much more quickly - reducing inefficiencies and freeing up valuable resources.

Maria Grazia Dassano, Four Eye Control Project Manager at Intesa Sanpaolo said: “Following a successful proof of concept with PelicanSecure Sanctions Self Learning, it was an easy decision for us to select Pelican. The solution scored highly for compliance accuracy, explanation, auditability and processing capacity, as well as for its intelligent AI-based approach to classifying false positives.”

Parth Desai, founder and CEO of Pelican commented: “It is a great privilege to welcome Intesa Sanpaolo, one of Italy’s most respected banks, as a Pelican customer. Designed to sit alongside third-party sanctions screening tools, PelicanSecure Sanctions Self Learning will dramatically reduce the time taken to process false positives from third-party systems. We are confident that Intesa will find that our technologies far exceed their expectations as we embark on a long-term relationship together to build an intelligent industry-leading compliance framework based on our 25 years of experience in AI and financial crime compliance.”

Fines issued by OFAC (the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control) for failure to comply with sanctions are significant. Over the last decade many banks across the globe have been fined for compliance failures, with the highest penalties exceeding several billion dollars. The shortcomings of existing sanction screening systems, and the shortage of expertise in this area, means the cost of compliance has become extremely high. As this continues to grow it poses a heavy burden for banks in a competitive market.

PelicanSecure Sanctions Self-Learning is a mature and industry-proven solution that works with a range of existing third-party screening tools. At Intesa Sanpaolo it is being deployed as part of their four-eye control project for sanctions screening - part of a market directive. The underlying Pelican AI technology platform which uses machine learning and natural language processing, has been live across a number of global banks for several years processing over one billion transactions worth over US$5 trillion.