UPDATED 22:50 EDT / SEPTEMBER 29 2016

NEWS

IBM brings AI to banking with Promontory Financial Group acquisition

IBM announced on Thursday it’s planning to acquire the financial and compliance consulting firm Promontory Financial Group, in order to bolster the financial regulatory expertise of its Watson cognitive computing platform.

Promontory’s main line of work involves helping banks muddle their way through the minefield of regulatory rules and risk management requirements of the financial sector.

The most interesting thing about the deal is how IBM plans to use Promontory’s human experts to educate its Watson artificial intelligence software. “Upon close, Promontory’s professionals will train Watson, which will learn by continuously ingesting regulatory information as it is created and through interaction in real-world applications,” IBM revealed in a statement.

Once the deal closes, Promontory will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of IBM, and will become the cornerstone of a new IBM business unit, Watson Financial Services, which will create new cognitive tools for the financial industry. These will include tools for tracking regulatory obligations, financial risk modeling, surveillance and anti-money laundering detection systems.

“This is a workload ideally suited for Watson’s cognitive capabilities intended to allow financial institutions to absorb the regulatory changes, understand their obligations, and close gaps in systems and practices to address compliance requirements more quickly and efficiently,” IBM explained.

The company provided more detail about this, saying that Promontory will work alongside Watson to help financial firms “absorb regulatory changes, understand their obligations, and close gaps in systems and practices to address compliance requirements more quickly and efficiently.” Some of the challenges involve financial risk modeling, anti-money laundering (AML), Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements and surveillance, IBM said.

“What Watson is doing to transform oncology by working with the world’s leading oncologists, we will now do for regulation, risk and compliance,” Bridget van Kralingen, senior vice president of IBM Industry Platforms, said in a statement. “Promontory’s experts are unsurpassed in this field. They will teach Watson and Watson, in turn, will extend and enhance their expertise. This initial offering of Watson Financial Services is emblematic of the transformative cloud-based solutions that IBM Industry Platforms will bring to clients.”

Promontory was founded back in 2001 by former U.S. Currency Comptroller Eugene Ludwig, and has since established itself as one of the world’s top financial consulting firms.

Photo Credit: frankieleon Flickr via Compfight cc

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