Aresbank Strengthens Trade Finance and Correspondent Banking Compliance with SymphonyAI

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."

Through this implementation, Aresbank aims to:

• Improve consistency and transparency across financial crime operations
• Enhance regulatory readiness with a modern SaaS platform
• Strengthen oversight as its correspondent banking and trade finance business grows
• Build a scalable compliance foundation to support future growth and regulatory change
• Reduce review hours and accelerate trade finance transaction processing

The platform gives Aresbank a foundation designed to adapt as new regulations and transaction types emerge, without requiring a system overhaul each time.

"Aresbank's business doesn't look like a typical retail bank, and that's exactly the point," said John Edison, President of Financial Services, SymphonyAI. "Our platform is built to support the full range of banking business models, from correspondent banking to trade finance, not just retail compliance. For Aresbank, that meant combining detection rules from both our retail and correspondent banking models into a single solution, then tuning it to reflect the bank's role as a bridge for trade between Europe and North Africa. This deployment deepens our presence in Iberia and shows how the same financial crime platform trusted by many of the region's largest banks can be adapted to a specialized institution with a very different risk profile."

Trade finance compliance poses different challenges than retail: monitoring has to account for the documents, counterparties and jurisdictions behind each letter of credit or guarantee, not just transaction velocity or amount. That distinction is central to why Aresbank's deployment relies on a platform purpose-built for correspondent banking and trade finance, rather than a retail system adapted after the fact.

Read the full story of how SymphonyAI adapted its platform to Aresbank's specialist business model in our case study, Aresbank case study.

To learn more about SymphonyAI's financial crime compliance solutions, visit https://www.symphonyai.com/financial-services.

About SymphonyAI

SymphonyAI Financial Services provides AI software to tackle the most complex challenges in financial crime detection, risk management, and compliance. With a global presence and more than 25 years of industry expertise, it combines deep domain knowledge with the latest AI innovation. Its pioneering agent-led solutions enable the Always-on Compliance™ operating model, helping financial institutions strengthen risk coverage, reduce costs, and adapt to changing threats and regulations. Its mission is to make the financial system safer while enabling institutions to grow with confidence. Learn more at symphonyai.com/financial-services.

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