Lord help me, I’m getting out my soapbox.
This week on AI and Finance we do have a strong list of headlines to get to, and we’ll be heading in that direction very shortly, but first I have something I want to say—again.
On a typical week, I start off this column with a little bit of data about financial AI and maybe a couple of thoughts about what AI is doing to the financial services industry—but this election week is so far from typical that I felt like touching on the political scene one more time while it’s still relevant.
I promise this is still about AI.
I asked several weeks ago where the AI-oriented election disruptions that I—and many others—thought might be an issue in this election. Now that (most) of the votes have been counted, I’m going to ask again:
Did AI disrupt this election at all?
Recall that over the past year we’ve had not a little hemming and hawing over what kind of chaos deepfakes and other AI-generated images, video and audio might unleash upon the U.S. electorate. Some funny business during primary season only amplified those fears.
Well now we’re in the aftermath, and I think we can look back and say that there was no AI disruption. AI misinformation did not play a big role in the success of one party or candidate and the failure of another.
In fact, as a journalist, I feel like I need to take the universe to task on all the misinformation fears leading up to Tuesday’s vote. Not only did the majority of the misinformation not come from AI (nor was it amplified by AI), but pretty much all of the misinformation in this year’s election came from two sources—the campaigns, candidates and surrogates who are always prone to misinformation due to their bias, and from the very human traditional media itself. In the interest of being evenhanded, I’m not going to point fingers at any specific people, publications or candidates, nor specific examples.
Look, AI’s ability to misinform people and harm our democracy is dependent on the willingness of campaigns, candidates and media members to lie, obfuscate or manipulate the truth to serve their own ends. That’s it. If this was the best of all possible worlds, we wouldn’t need to be concerned about AI being used to manipulate the electorate.
In this election, we may have lucked out—neither presidential candidate, neither major U.S. political party, and neither campaign seemed to take advantage of the new technologies at their disposal, perhaps because they did not understand artificial intelligence in the first place. In the future, we may not be so lucky—especially if our candidates and media continue to have such disregard for truth and accuracy.
Now I can put my soapbox away. Let’s get to some headlines.
1. Accenture
Accenture (NYSE: ACN) has acquired Allitix, a consulting and technology company specializing in Anaplan solutions with capabilities across financial planning and analysis, sales performance management and supply chain. The acquisition further strengthens Accenture’s connected planning capabilities using Anaplan, a platform that helps organizations see, plan and lead better business outcomes, and enhances its ability to help clients standardize planning practices across business functions for increased agility, productivity, and data-driven decision making.
Founded in 2017, Allitix is headquartered in Irvine, California. As a trusted Anaplan partner, Allitix provides tailored Anaplan-based solutions across finance, sales, supply chain, and human resources functions, with specific competencies in the manufacturing, consumer, technology, media and telecom and financial services industries.
Allitix has significant experience in implementing scalable, flexible and impactful business planning frameworks that enable enterprises to adapt to dynamic market conditions. The acquisition adds 73 employees, including over 60 Anaplan functional and technical professionals to Accenture Technology in North America, with expertise across solution architecture, model building, integration, and data management.
2. Algebrik AI
Algebrik AI Inc., a Delaware-incorporated company headquartered in New York City, pioneering the world’s first cloud-native and AI-powered digital era Loan Origination Platform, today announced that it has successfully secured $4 million in Series A to accelerate the development of its groundbreaking loan origination software. The investment will be disbursed in two phases.
Founded by Pankaj Jain, an industry veteran, Algebrik is designed to address the challenges faced by mid-tier banks and credit unions in the US, struggling with high customer acquisition costs due to broken omnichannel journeys and manual processes.
3. Behavox
Behavox, a leading provider of AI-driven compliance solutions for Financial Services, announced today that it has secured a $70 million credit facility from Hercules Capital, Inc. (NYSE: HTGC), further increasing ample liquidity reserves on its balance sheet. Behavox intends to use the funds for strategic acquisitions and the building of new products to deliver more value to compliance teams globally.
Today, Behavox is recognized as the leading provider of communication surveillance and regulatory archiving solutions. In response to the strong market demand, Behavox plans to expand its product portfolio in 2025, adding new solutions for Trade Surveillance, Control Room, and Sanction Screening. Strategic acquisitions, supported by the new credit facility, will help Behavox accelerate time to market and increase its distribution capabilities.
Behavox continues investing heavily in its product capabilities. The company’s Intelligent Archive has already achieved over 100% QoQ pipeline growth since its launch in January, demonstrating strong market demand for modern compliance and archiving solutions. Powered by Behavox’s proprietary large language model, Intelligent Archive consolidates compliance tech stacks, reduces costs, and enhances regulatory compliance across 100+ communication channels.
4. Binance
Binance, the global blockchain ecosystem behind the largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, today announced the appointment of Jeff Li as its new Vice President of Product during Binance Blockchain Week. Jeff will focus on expanding and enhancing Binance’s product suite, ensuring it remains at the forefront of building the future of the blockchain and Web3 space.
Jeff Li brings over 16 years of combined experience in both Web2 and Web3 product leadership and software engineering. Most recently, he served as VP, Global Head of CeFi Product at a major crypto exchange, where he led its global product teams on a wide range of centralized finance (CeFi) products in the areas of growth, retail and institutional, artificial intelligence (AI), and more. Prior to that, Jeff was at TikTok, where he served as the Director of Product and Global Head of TikTok Money and Compliance Platform, overseeing a team of product managers and collaborating with other cross-functional partners to drive growth and revenue at scale. His extensive background also includes product development and software engineering roles at globally renowned brands such as Instagram, Twitch, and Oracle.
5. Candidly
Candidly, the category leader in student debt and savings solutions, today announced the launch of Onward, a revolutionary consumer debt optimization solution designed to help financial institutions empower their end-customers to better manage their financial futures. Initially available as an API-only offering, with a full front-end experience coming in early 2025, Onward is poised to reshape how American workers allocate their hard-earned money across debt, savings, and investing.
As household debt reaches unprecedented levels and rising cost of living continues to burden American workers, many find it difficult to move beyond debt and save for the future. Onward addresses this pervasive challenge for most households by offering real-time, personalized decision support, which can be coupled with actionability, enabling users to realize savings on their consumer debt and then devote those savings into interest-bearing deposits.
Onward is available to workplace financial solution providers like 401(k) and 403(b) recordkeepers, retirement plan advisors, and others seeking to enhance their financial wellness offering while increasing deposits and assets under management. Onward assists users in optimizing their liabilities and freeing up cash flow tied up in debt payments and then intelligently redirecting those dollars across the suite of financial services and benefits offering that is the user’s next best action. The Onward API is highly configurable and can plug-and-play into a company’s existing product suite, such as HSA’s, FSA’s, brokerage accounts, IRA and retirement accounts.
6. CLARA Analytics
CLARA Analytics (“CLARA”), a leading provider of artificial intelligence (AI) technology for insurance claims optimization, today announced it has hired Eugene Wong as Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Mr. Wong brings over 15 years of finance and operating experience to his new role. He will work closely with CLARA CEO Heather H. Wilson to chart the financial and strategic course of the company amid impressive growth.
Mr. Wong’s appointment underscores CLARA’s ability to attract top talent as its claims intelligence platform is recognized for improving outcomes with claim guidance and document intelligence. CLARA was recently named one of the World’s Top Insurtech Companies of 2024 by CNBC and Statista.
Mr. Wong formerly served as CFO for Hometap, a fast-growth company striving to make homeownership less stressful and more accessible. While at Hometap, he significantly strengthened the firm’s financial position, drove substantial growth, and matured operations. Eugene was named a HousingWire 2023 Finance Leader for his efforts. Prior to Hometap, he was Vice President of Strategy and Finance at Forward Financing, where he led all initiatives related to strategic growth and finance. Previously, he was also an investment banker with Goldman Sachs in its Financial Institutions Group, where he advised U.S. financial institutions on mergers, acquisitions and financing. Wong also worked as Senior Vice President in the Sponsor Finance Group at Silicon Valley Bank, providing leveraged debt financing to private equity firms in support of their acquisitions of SaaS companies.
7. EY
The EY organization announces today the establishment of the EY.ai Global AI Advisory Council (the Council) to provide the latest insights and guidance necessary to stay at the forefront of rapidly evolving artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.
The Council will serve as a critical resource, assisting the global EY organization in navigating the increasingly complex landscape of AI. It will help to foster innovation, strengthen the EY AI ecosystem and responsibly address the societal impact of AI deployment with foresight and agility.
Supporting EY.ai, the unifying AI platform that launched in September 2023, the Global AI Advisory Council will act as a sounding board for the organization as it manages the extensive scale of AI deployments and constant rate of the technology’s advancement.
8. iCapital
iCapital1, the global fintech platform driving the world’s alternative investment marketplace for the wealth and asset management industries, and AltExchange, a leading AI-driven technology firm transforming alternative investment data aggregation, management, and reporting for financial advisors and asset managers, today announced they have entered a definitive agreement under which iCapital intends to acquire AltExchange.
AltExchange’s advanced technology aggregates and converts unstructured data from scattered documents and multi-format data feeds into structured insights to support real-time data reporting and streamlined tax reporting. AltExchange’s AdvisorVue platform empowers financial advisors by aggregating clients’ portfolios, standardizing data and documents, and automating reporting processes. For asset managers, AltExchange’s Digital Custodian Platform (DCP) provides a powerful tool to standardize post-investment reporting data, automate investor reporting, and facilitate seamless integration with advisors’ systems.
9. InfoSecurity Infrastructure
InfoSecurity Infrastructure, Inc. just released a new handbook which enables all types of organizations to quickly reduce the risks associated the use of artificial intelligence. Entitled “Internal Policies for Artificial Intelligence Risk Management,” this book provides a compilation of practical governance and risk management policies. Included are over 175+ already-written internal policies, each with accompanying justifications, and over 2000 linked references. Also provided is already-written and ready-to-deploy material like an “Artificial Intelligence Acceptable Use Policy” and an “AI Life Cycle Process Policy.” The background research and writing work has already been done, so purchaser organizations need to only select, customize, and recompile the material, to generate their own in-house policy statements. Original purchasers receive a perpetual organization-wide license to republish derivatives of these policies within their organization.
While much of the risk management discussion about AI has focused on governmental laws and regulations, this book focuses upon a very important but neglected area — internal policies at user organizations. The policy material provided is businesslike and implementable now, as opposed to far too much of the AI conversation to date, which has been hypothetical and futuristic. The book takes best practices in the information technology area, and then applies those to the unique risks of artificial intelligence, such as hallucinations (errors that appear to be credible), emergent properties (things that AI systems teach themselves), and inherited discrimination (perpetuating bias in a training dataset into an AI system’s output).
Just one of many indications that this book is needed is the tendency of many managers to consider AI as a replacement for people, but AI systems do not possess important human characteristics like common sense, empathy, morality, or contextual awareness. Instead of approaching AI as a replacement for people, this book provides explicit risk management approaches that allow humans to successfully work along-side AI systems. The book brings a new perspective to AI which embraces the needs of multiple stakeholders such as customers, employees, and business partners. A particular focus of the book is on justifiably obtaining user trust. When this trust is obtained there will be a new willingness to participate in AI projects, buy AI-enhanced products and services, and rely on AI-generated information.
10. Mbanq
Mbanq, a global leader in banking technology, launches Mbanq.AI, a series of deep enhancements to its core banking technology, and races to the forefront of an industry-wide shift towards an AI-first future. Mbanq’s Chief Technology Officer, Lars Rottweiler, also shared an ambitious vision for the role of Mbanq.AI to reshape how banks and fintechs will operate. Showcasing this vision at Money20/20 in Las Vegas, Mbanq’s AI-powered roadmap is set to drive unprecedented levels of automation, personalization, and operational efficiency in an AI-enhanced digital financial world.
Central to Mbanq’s vision is Mbanq.AI, a comprehensive suite of AI technologies embedded across the company’s core banking operations. By embedding AI into numerous layers of banking operations, Mbanq reduces costs, minimizes risk, and enhances customer engagement, all while achieving unprecedented levels of speed and scalability. From streamlining regulatory processes to automating decision-making, Mbanq’s AI solutions will play a foundational role in shaping banks and financial institutions over the next decade and beyond.
Already live, a key component of Mbanq’s AI strategy is its advanced decision engine. This AI technology leverages real-time data analytics for instant credit assessments, fraud detection, and compliance monitoring. This technology replaces traditionally complex, labor-intensive processes and allows financial institutions, banks, credit unions and fintech platforms to deliver faster, safer, and more customized decisions and services to customers. Mbanq’s AI-powered decision engine enables lenders to make accurate, data-driven decisions, streamlining processes and improving outcomes for consumers and institutions alike.
11. Posh AI
Posh AI, a pioneering provider of advanced conversational AI solutions for the banking industry, today announced a significant advancement in its market-leading AI platform with the introduction of REALM™ (Reasoning Engine leveraging AI & Language Models). Each application serves a specific purpose, but they are designed to be interoperable, making it easy for users to work across them seamlessly.
With years of proven leadership in Financial Services AI, Posh has solidified its position as the preferred solution for financial institutions seeking cutting-edge AI technology to power intelligent virtual assistants that enhance customer and employee experiences. With the launch of REALM™, Posh continues to enhance its suite of AI products, which span voice, digital, and knowledge-based interactions, while ensuring compliance and security for the highly regulated banking industry.
What is REALM™? Posh’s proprietary reasoning engine that orchestrates multiple AI models, including leading LLMs, to enable more intelligent analysis and decision-making across Posh’s products.
12. Procurify
CIBC Innovation Banking announced today it has provided US$20 million in growth capital to Procurify, a leader in proactive spend management solutions. This funding will support Procurify’s continued development of innovative procurement technologies and its mission to enhance organizational spend transparency and efficiency.
Procurify’s suite of proactive spend management solutions includes the recent launch of an all-new accounts payable (AP) automation solution. Building on the success of its existing AP platform and established customer base, this new AI-driven solution works efficiently across financial management processes, prioritizing vendor relationships.
13. ValueScape
Appraisal bias has come under an increasingly bright spotlight as an issue which can marginalize various people groups in their ability to interact with the housing market fairly and equally. There is a general will to address bias, with some efforts focused on training and some on quality control. However, the risk of potential bias can be difficult to identify quickly and clearly. Through AI-driven data analysis, we believe it is possible to shine light upon whether appraisals are being produced equitably across various market areas and neighborhoods, honing in on any troubling trends.
At ValueScape we have developed our bias application over a lengthy period of time, deliberately taking on as much constructive feedback as possible from investigators, fair housing associations, lenders, lawyers, appraisal management companies and regulators, including HUD, Fannie Mae, VA and the CFPB, and other market participants such as appraisers, realtors and homeowners. This process has led us into developing a multifaceted application based on advanced statistical and AI analysis, to arrive at a more thorough, data-driven model than other solutions. Our application gives clients the ability to construct trending models to analyze their appraisal population with precision for disparate treatment across communities, and alert them to any concerns. The application provides powerful inputs to the ROV process, giving it added value to clients.
This application is active with various clients who are benefiting from its use.
