Holvi reaps the benefits of AI-native compliance throughout a period of growth

Holvi is a payments institution, headquartered in Helsinki with additional offices in Berlin and Vienna. It offers business accounts for small and medium-sized enterprises across Europe, giving them access to banking, invoicing, bookkeeping, and smart payment cards in one place. The company’s aim is to eliminate the financial distractions for its small businesses, sole traders, and freelancers, so they can focus on the work they’re passionate about. 

Today, Holvi has around 40,000 customers, who collectively hold 50,000 accounts, and offers seamless cross-border payments in 18 different currencies. With this large customer base spread across Europe, the business must comply with sanctions regimes in multiple jurisdictions, with evasion risks one of the most significant financial crime typologies it faces. Meanwhile, thanks to an innovative, user-focused FinTech platform and its ability to offer instant payments, it also faces specific risks related to money laundering networks, money mules, fast cross-border transactions, and emerging fraud typologies. 

To counter these risks while continuing to support its growth ambitions with efficient anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) compliance, Holvi partners with ComplyAdvantage for Customer Screening, Ongoing Monitoring, Transaction Monitoring, and Payment Screening. 

Holvi sees gains from customization and AI features 

Ease of use was a crucial requirement for Holvi. For maximum efficiency, its compliance leadership cannot afford to spend longer than a day training analysts to use a given solution, which meant ComplyAdvantage’s intuitive, user-centric platform was ideal. 

With ComplyAdvantage, firms can create detailed risk-based parameters for both customer screening and transaction monitoring, with thresholds tailored to customer segments, geography, and business lines. This level of segmentation has enabled Holvi to enhance the sophistication of its compliance program and identify the most complex financial crime networks and typologies. 

“With ComplyAdvantage, we can have extremely segmented and sophisticated rules that allow us to spot the most sophisticated fraudulent networks.” 

Valentina Butera, Head of AML and AFC Operations, Holvi 

Holvi also named ComplyAdvantage’s artificial intelligence (AI) features as among the most important factors in its decision to continue using the platform. ComplyAdvantage uses AI throughout the financial crime risk management lifecycle, from automated customer and risk data ingestion to dynamic risk scoring and agentic case remediation. 

For Holvi, a key example is RAI Smart Alerts, which uses AI to prioritize transaction monitoring alerts automatically and allows analysts to focus on tackling the highest-risk, most complex cases rather than endlessly dealing with backlogs of low-risk alerts that must be remediated manually. 

Thanks to features like this, Holvi has been able to make significant productivity gains that contribute to overall operational efficiency. Its compliance team can also gain full explainability into why transactions have been flagged and the risk factors behind suspicious transactions, leading to stronger auditability and regulatory outcomes. 

“RAI Smart Alerts have definitely increased our team’s productivity. We now have full explainability over why a certain transaction has been flagged and what risk factors have contributed.” 

Valentina Butera, Head of AML and AFC Operations, Holvi 

Turning compliance into a business advantage 

For Holvi, an effective compliance program is crucial for achieving broader business goals, a task it has successfully accomplished through expansions into new jurisdictions and markets. To increase customer acquisition rates and scale the business, Holvi must create an intuitive user experience that is free of unnecessary delays during onboarding or transaction processing. Without a robust risk management framework, however, firms like Holvi can face regulatory enforcement actions and a loss of consumer trust. 

Getting the balance right is a critical challenge for financial institutions. As an agile, customer-focused, and responsive partner, ComplyAdvantage has helped Holvi achieve this with a streamlined, scalable compliance solution that enhances risk visibility and reduces manual workloads. 

Holvi’s relationship with ComplyAdvantage has been ongoing for several years, starting in 2018, with Holvi stakeholders noting that ComplyAdvantage has been able to grow in tandem with Holvi over this period. Through this ongoing partnership, Holvi and ComplyAdvantage demonstrate that compliance and business goals can be achieved together. 

“A compliance program is critical in achieving business goals… ComplyAdvantage has been an enabler for growth without compromising on the efficiency or effectiveness of our controls.” 

Valentina Butera, Head of AML and AFC Operations, Holvi 

A multi-year partnership helps achieve long-term goals

The longevity of this relationship is now one of its greatest strengths. Holvi’s leadership attributes it to ComplyAdvantage’s dedicated customer success team, which facilitates open and supportive communication across both companies and proactively helps Holvi address any challenges that come up with a combination of technical knowledge and deep regulatory expertise. “They understand that every issue a business faces is unique,” as Valentina Butera, Holvi’s Head of AML and AFC Operations, put it. 

The knowledge that ComplyAdvantage prioritizes Holvi’s own business goals has created a successful, long-term partnership, which Holvi compares favorably to its experiences with other vendors. This ongoing support has enabled Holvi to capitalize on the ComplyAdvantage platform’s built-in flexibility, creating a customized solution finely calibrated to its risk appetite, business profile, and business goals. 

“Whenever Holvi has needed anything, even if it was something extra or complicated for an audit coming up, we knew that ComplyAdvantage would be there and ready to help us, going beyond contractual obligations.” 

Valentina Butera, Head of AML and AFC Operations, Holvi