Ant International deploys AI to streamline and protect cross-border transactions for nearly 100 million SMEs worldwide

In order to improve and secure millions of cross-border transactions for merchants in more than 200 global markets, Ant International, a prominent global provider of digital payments and financial technology with its headquarters located in Singapore, has been stepping up its integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies.

“Integration of AI into the processing of cross-border transactions is of critical importance to further strengthening global trade and commerce, especially for SMEs who up to now can't afford real-time global settlement services. In deploying AI in merchant services, enhanced fraud detection and prevention against new scamming schemes like deepfaking is as important, if not more important, as increasing operational efficiency. We have safeguards in place to ensure human intervention if discrepancies arise between the new and old models. We avoid having blind faith in AI, maintaining checks to uphold accuracy.” ~Yang Peng, Chief Executive Officer of Ant International

AI-powered FX model to reduce costs

Ant International can now forecast currency exchange rates on an hourly basis in addition to daily or weekly ones thanks to artificial intelligence. With the help of this sophisticated AI model, which has been developed over many years, merchants can make accurate predictions for both inbound and outbound transactions, lowering transaction costs and freeing up resources for business expansion.

Hundreds of different models can be combined into a single, more accurate system by the new AI-powered FX model. But there are risks associated with processing millions of transactions every day using a single model.

AI-powered e-KYC to combat deepfake

Because these complex forgeries are getting harder for humans to spot, advances in generative AI, and in particular deepfake technologies, are presenting serious security challenges for financial institutions. Over the course of two years, Ant International has created an anti-deepfake electronic Know Your Customer (e-KYC) tool to combat AI-assisted cyberattacks. Mr. Yang claims that this tool has an interception success rate of over 99%.

New partnerships during SFF

On Tuesday, OCBC and Ant International signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the goal of utilizing AI and innovations to enhance efficiency and transparency in order to achieve 24/7 real-time transactions between Singapore and Malaysia through Ant International's Whale platform.

In order to give foreign visitors their preferred payment services through domestic e-wallets, PayPay, the leading QR payment operator in Japan, announced an expanded partnership with Alipay+, Ant International's cross-border mobile payment and digitalization technology solution.