Estonia-based regtech company Salv has closed a EUR 4 million seed round extension led by ffVC, with participation from G+D Ventures and existing investors to further its expansion. Based on information provided in the announcement, Salv is set to utilise the funds to continue developing its modular regtech technology, support geographical expansion to new territories of the likes of Poland, and fuel the expansion of its real-time collaborative crime-fighting platform into Europe and the UK.

Salv’s collaborative crime-fighting technology As part of its offering, Salv includes the necessary anti-money laundering (AML) functionalities for financial services companies, such as automatic identification and prioritisation of suspicious activity and processing of extensive amounts of data in real-time. Additionally, its toolset includes its proprietary collaborative crime-fighting platform, Salv Bridge, which leverages the collective power of its network looking to minimise non-compliance and financial crime. A fully GDPR-compliant platform, Salv Bridge enables collaborative investigations between financial institutions by having a direct line of communication opened which allows them to exchange and enrich data on potential threats, thus helping network members solve cases related to fraud in a matter of minutes, not days.

As they utilise this collective intelligence from financial institutions withing the Bridge network, Salv’s tools can adapt to evolving threats. When commenting on the market entry, Salv representatives advised that the digitalisation of the financial industry has led in an ‘avalanche of financial crime’, with the number projected to keep on growing. Furthermore, they stated that the Salv Bridge platform has proven to be effective against money laundering, sanctions, and fraud, as financial companies within its collaborative crime-fighting network have prevented approximately EUR 6-7 million from reaching criminal-controlled accounts.

Following the receival of the funds, the company is enabled to add further functionality to its modular toolset and expand to new markets, looking to help more companies improve their crime-fighting measures and protect their end-customers. Collaboration and how it helps fight financial crime As per press release information, following the growth of the financial technology industry, financial crime, and fraud more specifically, have seen a ‘meteoric rise’. As per a UK Finance fraud report, in the first half of 2022, APP fraud losses amounted to GBP 250 million, with approximately 6% having been recalled successfully, thus leaving criminals with a 94% success rate.

Due to the complexity of cross-border investigations, the low-risk, high-profit nature, as well as the low probability of prosecution, fraud becomes an attractive activity for international organised crime groups, who benefit from differences in national legislation. Criminals are successful as they have large, efficient international networks for sharing information, whilst financial institutions lack the means to exchange information on suspicious activity in a secure and effective manner. Mostly operating in silos, they try to have problems solved individually, which oftentimes leads to lost time, which is believed to be crucial when recalling fraud successfully.

When commenting on this, LHV Bank representatives advised that the company was a part of Salv’s Bridge pilot and noticed results in a short timeframe, with authorised push payment fraud cases having had a significant decrease across the network. Furthermore, they stated that Salv’s solution enables them to communicate in real-time with other institutions within the network and offers them the necessary tools to apply effective countermeasures to the continuously changing patterns of financial crime. Company officials of ffVC commented on the investment and advised that the enterprise was looking to invest into a working solution that has proven to be effective against financial crime and stated that they look forward to supporting Salv’s geographical expansion and have more financial institutions join the network to have their compliance and crime-fighting capabilities improved.

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