I need a solution to the other side of this problem: an AI agent that will get me through the KYB process of a bank so I can open a business account.
If we fix business banking onboarding there will be no need for this!
Launch HN: Arva AI (YC S24) – AI agents for instant global KYB onboarding
41–50 of 62 posts
Re: Launch HN: Arva AI (YC S24) – AI agents for instant global KYB onboarding
#42> a human analyst has to conduct extensive manual verification a lot of the time. This causes long onboarding times, and there are huge costs in maintaining compliance teams and in fixing mistakes—because human analysts often deviate from procedure. What about the ones that don't deviate from procedure. What happens to the human analysts who do a good job? Are they automated away? AI has so many applications, it seem…
Of course they are, but automating people out of low level work frees people to do higher value things in society... Besides this concern isn't about this startup but AI in general.
Re: Launch HN: Arva AI (YC S24) – AI agents for instant global KYB onboarding
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Without explanation sounds like when platforms auto ban you without giving a reason or send you endless unsolvable captchas.
It is not possible to give the reason for offboarding as it may tip off fraudsters on how they can evade detection next time. This is standard across the industry.
i.e. "Security through obscurity" - which isn't a phrase with a good reputation in these parts...
I note that if you know your way around the dark web, it's relatively straightforward to find a "financial crimes advocacy" website with suggestions on evading KYC and other compliance hurdles; obviously I won't repeat them here (and I know that probably the majority of would-be bank fraudsters probably aren't into checking the darkweb for advice) so I hope there's more to it than just information-control...
Re: Launch HN: Arva AI (YC S24) – AI agents for instant global KYB onboarding
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
So what you're saying is that you could've done this startup a decade ago without LLMs using traditional NLP and ML techniques. Or even just with straight up procedural code, OCR and a rules engine. Especially since as you say everything you're dealing with is highly structured. I work at a bank and everything you mentioned was solved many, many years ago. So the more interesting question then is why are fintechs sti…
Not quite! Fintechs often still have humans review docs, websites, perform web due diligence etc. Efficacy has vastly improved at these validation steps with the assistance of LLMs. Interesting to hear that your previous bank has automated all of low/medium risk already, from what we have seen more traditional banks are far behind fintechs and are more risk averse in using new technologies. Nice to see that's not the…
> Efficacy has vastly improved at these validation steps with the assistance of LLMs.
Is that "efficacy" as the (customer-hostile) bank defines it, or is this more holistic interpretation that also factors in false-positives?
i.e. can you assert that things are better now for everyone, including the completely innocent people who often get caught-up in Kafkaesque KYC ("KKYC?") loops?
Re: Launch HN: Arva AI (YC S24) – AI agents for instant global KYB onboarding
#45I'm curious why a tech-first bank like Revolut is not building something like this internally if it's such an obvious cost-saving measure? I understand why traditional banks might not (no tech culture, old processes, all the usual bla).
Re: Launch HN: Arva AI (YC S24) – AI agents for instant global KYB onboarding
#46I need a solution to the other side of this problem: an AI agent that will get me through the KYB process of a bank so I can open a business account.
If we fix business banking onboarding there will be no need for this!
At least where I am (in Sweden) that would require scaling back the amount of paperwork banks feel they need to “KYB”. Opening a bank account today requires about the same amount of paperwork as a loan application 20 years ago. You have to submit a business plan with a SWAT analysis. I kid you not.
Re: Launch HN: Arva AI (YC S24) – AI agents for instant global KYB onboarding
#47> a human analyst has to conduct extensive manual verification a lot of the time. This causes long onboarding times, and there are huge costs in maintaining compliance teams and in fixing mistakes—because human analysts often deviate from procedure. What about the ones that don't deviate from procedure. What happens to the human analysts who do a good job? Are they automated away? AI has so many applications, it seem…
Of course they are, but automating people out of low level work frees people to do higher value things in society... Besides this concern isn't about this startup but AI in general.
That is such a myth. Only a few people are capable of higher level things in society. Not everyone can or wants to be an artist or composer.
Re: Launch HN: Arva AI (YC S24) – AI agents for instant global KYB onboarding
#48I've seen reports of skilled candidates being weeded out and unskilled ones gaming the system with this happening in the ATS space.
Legitimate candidates are rejected without ever knowing that they were filtered out and have no way of know why or how to fix it.
Aside from saving time for business customers, how do you intend to address this sort of system abuse and failure of users?
Re: Launch HN: Arva AI (YC S24) – AI agents for instant global KYB onboarding
#49I've seen reports of skilled candidates being weeded out and unskilled ones gaming the system with this happening in the ATS space. Legitimate candidates are rejected without ever knowing that they were filtered out and have no way of know why or how to fix it. Aside from saving time for business customers, how do you intend to address this sort of system abuse and failure of users?
(not affiliated to the company)
- This is KYB (know your business), not KYC (know your customer)
- Pretty sure there is manual oversight/review behind the AI
- Fraud detection is an entire domain space with dedicated companies/solutions
Re: Launch HN: Arva AI (YC S24) – AI agents for instant global KYB onboarding
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Our agent implements every step of the procedure that a human compliance analyst would follow, step by step. As a result, every individual check that makes up the overall decision is documented with the reasoning and evidence the agent used. You can also choose to bucket your customers by risk level and require manual review for higher risk customers (e.g. certain business activities like crypto or gambling, complex…
So a long way of saying "Nope" to the actual question?
Said differently: they are a data processor, not a data controller, and as such leave the legal burden on their customers, while promising some level of automation / cost reduction. It sorts of makes sense, the main challenge being profitability for Arva.