Estonian Regtech Salv has raised €3.9m in new funding to spearhead a launch into the UK.
The round includes investments from new and existing investors, bringing its capital raised this year to €7.9m and total funding to €12.1m.
Launched in 2019, Salv was founded by former anti-money laundering experts from Skype and Wise, Taavi Tamkivi and Jeff McClelland, along with Wise's former software engineer Sergei Rumjantsev. Its suite of products include tools to detect, prevent and stop fraud, money laundering, and terrorist financing.
The firm counts 53 financial institutions across 12 countries among its customer rosta. Providers, including LHV Bank, Swedbank and SEB, rely on Salv for customer and sanctions screening, real-time inbound and outbound transaction monitoring and risk scoring.
The investment will fuel Salv's expansion in the UK, a market currently experiencing a sharp increase in Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud, where criminals use social engineering attacks involving impersonation to trick consumers or businesses into transferring money to their accounts.
The UK’s Payment Systems Regulator will introduce mandatory reimbursement for APP fraud victims next year, placing equal liability on both sending and receiving payment companies.
So far, most banks and payment firms have overlooked inbound transaction monitoring, only focusing on funds leaving their client’s accounts, says Salv CEO Tamkivi, founder and CEO, who views the rule change as an important growth opportunity.
“As the UK moves towards shared responsibility for APP fraud refunds, financial institutions must adapt," he says. "Our suite, particularly the inbound monitoring feature, is critical for detecting fraudulent activities and money mule accounts, thereby reducing the financial institution’s liability. This feature, along with tools like our Bridge platform, is tailored to meet the evolving regulatory demands, and the soon-to-launched AI-based no-code rule generator will enable financial institutions to swiftly adapt to new criminal behaviour.”
Currently in its final phase of testing, the AI-based no-code rule generator is set for launch in Q2 next year. Developed using data from existing manually created monitoring rules that have been validated and improved with transactional data, the tool allows for the implementation of new transaction monitoring rules without requiring developer support.
Salv’s toolkit also includes Bridge, a fully GDPR-compliant collaborative crime-fighting platform, enabling rapid tactical information exchange between its members. In Estonia, the Bridge network covers 99% of the market and contributes to the prevention of 50% of fraud cases and achieving recovery rates for stolen funds for APP fraud victims as high as 80%.
These figures significantly surpass the UK's current estimated baseline of five percent. Tamkivi says Salv will initiate a closed pilot for a similar Bridge network in the UK early next year, in collaboration with a global banking group.