IBM’s artificial intelligence (AI) powered Watson Financial Services has announced changes to its portfolio of services to help companies tackle risk and regulatory compliance challenges.

These include ‘significant’ enhancements to IBM’s OpenPages 8.0 with Watson, which leverages the AI technology to let users more easily interpret complex issues and match them automatically to controls and obligations, as well as analyse losses, emerging risks and failed controls.

The new regulatory content provided by Watson Regulatory Compliance will also allow professionals to a have a timely and accurate view of all their responsibilities, automating what is often a labour-intensive, error-prone process.

IBM Financial Crimes Insight with Watson accelerates high cost due diligence activities and helps risk and compliance professionals make decisions in regards to anti-money laundering transaction monitoring and sanctions alerts generated by existing systems.

Following IBM’s acquisition of Armanta - an aggregation and analytics software firm - in May, the now integrated technology lets clients aggregate data across multiple systems in near real-time, while building their enterprise reporting solutions on top of existing analytics.

HSBC has been an early beta adopter of IBM’s new governance, risk and compliance technologies, rapidly scaling OpenPages 8.0 with Watson to their 15,000 users across 70 countries. Currently, the system has more than 400 unique users every 24 hours, with more being added as the platform expands.

“We have already seen strong adoption of the IBM solutions by our first and second ‘line of defence’ professionals who are eager to use the system in their day-to-day work,” said Cathy Ryan, head of operational risk IT at HSBC. “It’s now easier to identify risk stewards, risk owners and control owners, for example, and enable our teams to address issues much more quickly and effectively.”

Alistair Rennie, general manager at IBM Watson Financial Services, commented that in today’s global marketplace, financial services firms must grapple with competition, increasing regulation and market volatility, while also maintaining profitability and growth in a world disrupted by emerging technologies and FinTechs.

“Whether it be employee conduct, ethics, third parties, or data, risks are a constant in conducting business today and can have major implications,” he continued. “One control failure left unchecked could lead to bigger issues such as a heavy fine that can drag down a company’s reputation – regulators also now expect broader participation from a company’s first line of defence, making managing risk even more complicated.”

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