As a specialized corporate and trade finance bank in the MENA region, Aresbank manages risk and moves money across some of the most sensitive trade corridors between Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. Operating in a highly regulated environment, Aresbank turned to SymphonyAI, a global leader in Vertical AI whose financial crime compliance platform already spans retail, commercial and correspondent banking, to strengthen its transaction monitoring framework across trade finance and correspondent banking.
Headquartered in Madrid, the bank's business centers on trade instruments, including correspondent banking, documentary credits, international guarantees and multi-currency credit lines that connect European and MENA markets.
Correspondent banking carries a distinct risk profile, and trade finance flows in the region remain a focus for regulators concerned with sanctions evasion and trade-based money laundering.
Aresbank has selected SymphonyAI's transaction monitoring capabilities, delivered as a SaaS solution, to replace controls that are only partially automated and operationally intensive. Once deployed, the platform will support oversight of billions of euros in correspondent banking activity each month, alongside its trade finance transaction monitoring.
"Our controls were only partially automated and operationally intensive, and they could no longer keep pace with the oversight our regulators expect across trade finance and correspondent banking," said Isabel Tobares, Head of Compliance, Global Risk Control at Aresbank. "The future of AML is not about doing more controls. It's about making our controls smarter through automation, data, and technology. SymphonyAI gives us a platform built for our business, not a retail template, and one we can scale as our compliance requirements evolve."
