ThetaRay AI Technology to Monitor Knox Wire Cross-Border Payments

SaaS AML solution to support growth of Apollo Fintech's global business while protecting against known and unknown money laundering crimes

NEW YORK, TEL AVIV, Israel and PRETORIA, South Africa, March 30, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- South Africa-based Apollo Fintech today announced that ThetaRay, provider of AI-powered monitoring technology to protect banks and fintechs against financial crimes, will monitor global cross-border payments on its newly launched Knox Wire service.      

Knox Wire is an innovative bank-to-bank communication system that enables 30,000 financial institutions to offer their clients near-instant cross-border payments to over 200 countries in 150 currencies with lower transactions costs. Established in January 2022, Knox Wire is already the world's third largest network for cross-border payments.

"Apollo Fintech has a mission to exceed the highest industry capabilities and offer the safest, fastest, and most feature-rich products possible," said Stephen McCullah, CEO of Apollo Fintech. "Knox Wire was built to set a new global standard for network size and settlement speed. The ThetaRay solution will allow Apollo Fintech to expand our network of partner financial institutions by relying on a best-in-class AML and screening solution."

With the ThetaRay SONAR SaaS transaction monitoring and screening, Apollo Fintech will be able to safely grow business while ensuring they are not facilitating any financial crimes, such as money laundering and terrorist financing.  SONAR is the industry's most advanced financial crime prevention solution for cross-border payments.

"We are thrilled to launch this partnership and provide Apollo with a growth engine for new business," said Mark Gazit, ThetaRay CEO. "With ThetaRay's advanced AI transaction monitoring, Apollo can accelerate a new level of trust in the global financial system. ThetaRay's AI makes the entire process of transaction monitoring much more efficient and effective and increases customer satisfaction, while ensuring safety and security."

The COVID era has triggered an upsurge in the volume of cross-border payments, a market valued at some $35 trillion today and expected to exceed $42.7 trillion in 2026.¹ This market is a prime target for financial crimes such as money laundering, theft, and fraud. 

ThetaRay's solution for anti-money laundering (AML) analyzes client/payer/payee data and risk indicators to detect anomalies indicating money laundering activity across complex, cross-border transaction paths, including the use of shell people and companies. Pseudo-customer identities create proxies of customers to isolate high-risk originator or beneficiary (non-customer) activity to identify complex risk patterns. The solution also screens transactions for financial activity by individuals who have been placed on sanctions lists.

SONAR is based on an advanced form of AI, "artificial intelligence intuition," to make better decisions. This enables the rapid discovery of both known and unknown money laundering threats, with a peerless 95% detection rate and 99% reduction in false positives compared to rules-based solutions.

The solution can be quickly and easily integrated, with minimal adaptation required.

¹ Juniper Research: B2B Cross-border Payment Transaction Values, August 2021

About ThetaRay:

ThetaRay's AI-powered SONAR transaction monitoring solution, based on "artificial intelligence intuition," allows banks and fintechs to expand their business opportunities through safe and reliable cross-border payments. The groundbreaking solution also improves customer satisfaction, reduces compliance costs, and increases risk coverage. ThetaRay's technology is the only SaaS offering that analyzes SWIFT traffic, risk indicators and client/payer/payee data to detect anomalies indicating money laundering activity across complex, cross-border transaction paths in a single unified platform. Financial organizations that rely on highly heterogeneous and complex ecosystems benefit greatly from ThetaRay's unmatchable low false positive and high detection rates.