Al Ansari Exchange, the UAE-based foreign exchange and worldwide money transfer company, today announced its strategic partnership with Pelican, a global company that has pioneered the practical application of AI technology to enhance, streamline and secure the payment cycle and ensure financial crime compliance. Pelican will implement AI-based sanctions screening, anti-money laundering and transaction monitoring solution, PelicanSecure, in line with Al-Ansari Exchange’s innovation strategy and commitment to build an industry-leading compliance framework.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

PelicanSecure employs advanced AI technologies to analyze transactions flagged for investigation through sanction screening tools. Pelican uses machine learning and natural language processing to identify, screen and report suspicious transactions.                           

Mohammad Bitar, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Al Ansari Exchange, said, “Preventing financial crime sits at the core of our business and the partnership with Pelican demonstrates our commitment to continuously explore, create and introduce innovative financial solutions to strengthen our regulatory compliance framework and processes. The use of AI technology is part of the company’s strategy, so finding a proven solution from a partner we can trust is key. We selected Pelican as we are convinced they can support us enhancing our anti-money laundering and sanctions compliance frameworks to make them more robust through the use of innovative technology. This is the start of a long-term partnership with Pelican and we look forward to working closely to streamline our operations around sanction screening, transaction monitoring and AML, both now and in the future.”

To select its partner, Al Ansari Exchange went through a comprehensive evaluation process. PelicanSecure was retained as it scores highly for compliance accuracy, explanation, auditability and processing capacity, as well as for its intelligent AI-based approach to classify and highlight high risk transactions and remittances with sanctioned entities.

Parth Desai, founder and CEO of Pelican commented: “It is a great privilege to work with Al Ansari Exchange, one of the leading exchange companies in the UAE, and help them in achieving their compliance ambitions. Designed to work both in a real-time and periodic scanning and reporting environment, PelicanSecure will enhance the compliance functions and their scope within Al-Ansari Exchange. We share a common vision and are confident that Al Ansari Exchange will find that our technologies exceed their expectations as we embark on a long-term  relationship  to build an industry-leading compliance framework.”

Pelican has a strong footprint in the market with a portfolio of clients including leading financial institutions such as ADCB, Standard Chartered Bank, Al Mulla Exchange, Wells Fargo, State Bank of India and Bank of Barbados.