How an SG regtech firm won over StanChart and HSBC with ‘ChatGPT for banks’

Like a rising tide lifting all boats, ChatGPT is amplifying the AI wave, and Silent Eight wants to provide a similar tool for banks.

The Singapore-based firm, which was established in 2013 by Polish entrepreneurs Martin Markiewicz, Julia Markiewicz, and Michael Wilkowski, specializes in regtech or regulatory tech. It has developed a “ChatGPT for banks” that uses machine learning and natural language processing techniques to tackle financial crime.

Image credit: Timmy Loen

Martin, who also serves as Silent Eight’s CEO, tells Tech in Asia that existing methods are “not working as well as they should” because out of the approximately US$800 billion to US$2 trillion – or 2% to 5% of the global gross domestic product – that is laundered globally in a year, only 1% is seized by the authorities.

To help banks and financial institutions avoid facilitating fund flows of dubious origin, Silent Eight’s technology screens customers and transactions against a sanctions list for political exposure and adverse media coverage. It also checks transactions for suspicious activity that could point to money laundering or terrorism financing.

The tech’s optimization engine analyzes historical case decisions, learns to replicate the assessments in a similar way that a human analyst would, and proposes a response.

Martin explains that a recommendation might look like this: “We have to report this person to the authorities because it looks like it’s a terrorist group.”

As big banks step up their anti-money laundering efforts, Silent Eight is seeing keen interest from players including Standard Chartered and HSBC, which are also its investors. Between January to December, the startup expects to boost its annual revenue 5x from “double-digit” millions. It’s also expecting to hit profitability by mid-year.

Martin says that apart from hiring people, Silent Eight is “getting new customers all the time” and growing “against the trend” even in the wake of a global banking crisis that has rocked even stalwarts like Credit Suisse.

Courting large banks

Silent Eight, the Markiewicz couple’s and Wilkowski’s second venture together after opening a firm that operates hydropower plants in Warsaw, was originally meant to be an enterprise search product meant to serve as a “Google for internal data” for employees.

The product would allow staff to conduct searches across the enterprise – Google Docs, Microsoft Office, blogs, intranets, and internal messaging platforms – to get the information they need. In 2015, the startup raised seed funding from investors including Wavemaker Partners.

The trio decided to launch Silent Eight in Singapore. “If we started this off from Poland, we’d probably be selling either to local banks or to branches of regional or global banks,” Martin notes.

Silent Eight founders (from left) Michael Wilkowski, Julia Markiewicz, and Martin Markiewicz

A facelift for “old school” tech

Centralized sanctions screening

Growing revenue curve