Recap: Solytics Partners' AI In FCC Conclave Johannesburg 2026

Building Intelligent Financial Crime Defence with GenAI and Agentic AI

Solytics Partners successfully hosted the AI in FCC Conclave – Johannesburg 2026, bringing together senior leaders across financial crime, fraud, compliance, risk, analytics, and technology to examine how financial institutions can strengthen Financial Crime Compliance (FCC) as AI capabilities and regulatory expectations continue to evolve.

The conclave opened with welcome remarks from Dr. Manish Kumar, Co-Founder and Chief Analytics Officer, Solytics Partners, who set the context for the evolving FCC landscape and the industry's progression from rules-based detection to GenAI-assisted investigations and Agentic AI.

The discussions then moved to a central question for financial institutions: how can GenAI and Agentic AI be deployed across financial crime operations while maintaining the governance, human oversight, auditability, and regulatory defensibility required in a highly controlled environment?

Discussions throughout the afternoon covered FATF Mutual Evaluation readiness, risk-based FCC effectiveness, transaction monitoring, AI-driven investigations, fraud-AML convergence, customer risk intelligence, case management, and the practical application of GenAI and Agentic AI across the financial crime operating model.

Regulatory Perspective: From Compliance Controls to Demonstrable FCC Effectiveness

The regulatory keynote was delivered by Christopher Malan, Executive Manager: Compliance and Prevention, Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC), South Africa, bringing a regulatory perspective to FCC effectiveness and FATF Mutual Evaluation readiness. His session examined expectations around implementation and execution of the risk-based approach, changes in compliance behaviour, improvements since the previous Mutual Evaluation, and the effectiveness of transaction monitoring systems in achieving positive outcomes.

The discussion highlighted the importance of evidence-based FCC programmes, where institutions can demonstrate how risk is identified, how controls operate in practice, how investigations are conducted, and how those measures contribute to measurable financial crime outcomes.

Executive Panel: AI-Driven, Regulator-Defensible Investigations

The executive panel brought together Dr. Ofentse Theledi, Head of AML/CFT at Nedbank; Ntombi Ngema, ME – Customer Risk, Intelligence & Surveillance at Absa Group; Fred Salimane, Head – Group Forensic Services at Old Mutual; and Jeanette Molefe, Senior AML Officer at Public Investment Corporation, moderated by Patrick Bowe, Product Head – AML/FCC at Solytics Partners.

The panel explored how AI can be deployed across AML/CFT risk management, including risk assessment, transaction monitoring, sanctions screening, investigations, and case management, while maintaining the oversight and controls required for responsible adoption.

The discussion also brought practitioner perspectives on emerging financial crime typologies and the practical realities of applying AI across financial crime operations. A key consideration was the need to move beyond conceptual AI adoption towards implementation frameworks that address model validation, ongoing monitoring, false-positive management, human oversight, governance, and auditability.

As AI becomes increasingly embedded into investigative workflows, analysts need the ability to interpret, challenge, and contextualise AI-generated outputs rather than simply consume them.

Workshop: Applying GenAI and Agentic AI Across FCC Operations

The interactive workshop, led by Shalini V., Head of FCC at Solytics Partners, moved the discussion from strategy into practical application, exploring how GenAI and Agentic AI can be incorporated into existing ML/TF/PF risk management processes and operating models.

Participants examined multiple areas where intelligent technologies can support FCC operations, including:

• AI-powered adverse news screening, with a focus on identifying and escalating genuine risk.
• Entity-centric CDD and EDD, bringing together relevant customer and entity intelligence.
• End-to-end risk assessment, including configurable risk drivers, automated assessments, and integrated insights.
• Agentic AI for investigations, including autonomous L1 alert triage and disposition with human-in-the-loop escalation.
• Transaction monitoring optimisation, using behavioural analytics and scenario tuning to improve detection and reduce false positives.
• Unified Case Management, bringing investigation workflows, customer 360° views, AI-drafted STRs, and e-filing capabilities into a common environment.
• Dynamic customer risk intelligence, enabling continuous, behaviour-driven risk assessment.
• Fraud and AML intelligence fusion, providing a more connected view of criminal activity and networks.
• FCC effectiveness measurement and governance, including management information, model validation, ownership, and evidence that can withstand regulatory scrutiny.

The workshop reinforced that the value of AI in FCC is not limited to automating individual tasks. Its greater potential lies in connecting fragmented processes and intelligence across the financial crime lifecycle while retaining appropriate human decision points and governance controls.

From AI Adoption to AI Implementation

A key takeaway from the discussions was the distinction between identifying AI use cases and implementing them effectively within a regulated FCC environment.

For transaction monitoring and investigations in particular, moving from conceptual AI applications to production deployment requires attention to areas such as model validation, ongoing monitoring, false-positive management, explainability, human oversight, and auditability.

These considerations become increasingly important as AI moves from providing analytical assistance to participating directly in operational workflows. Agentic systems can support activities such as alert triage, investigation preparation, information gathering, and case disposition, but their deployment requires clearly defined boundaries, escalation mechanisms, ownership, and controls.

This creates a broader implementation challenge for FCC leaders: determining where AI can deliver measurable operational improvement while ensuring that the underlying control framework remains transparent, reviewable, and regulator-defensible.

Technology Showcase: Agentic AI in the Investigation Workflow

The conclave also included a live Agentic AI demonstration, showcasing how agentic capabilities can operate within an end-to-end financial crime investigation workflow.

The demonstration provided a practical view of how AI agents can support investigative processes rather than operating as isolated analytical tools. The session connected the broader discussions around automation, investigation efficiency, human oversight, and governance with a tangible FCC workflow.

The focus was on moving towards smarter detection and stronger investigations while maintaining measurable evidence of FCC effectiveness.

Key Takeaways

The Johannesburg Conclave highlighted several important considerations for financial institutions evaluating the next phase of AI adoption in financial crime compliance:

• Regulatory effectiveness must remain central. AI adoption needs to contribute to demonstrable improvements in FCC outcomes, rather than becoming an objective in itself.
• AI needs to operate within a defined control framework. Human oversight, governance, audit trails, ownership, and appropriate escalation mechanisms remain critical as AI becomes embedded into investigations and monitoring.
• Transaction monitoring requires more than model deployment. Behavioural analytics, scenario optimisation, false-positive reduction, validation, and continuous monitoring all form part of the implementation challenge.
• Agentic AI introduces a new operating model. Autonomous L1 triage, investigation support, and workflow orchestration create opportunities for greater efficiency, while also requiring clear boundaries between automated actions and human decisions.
• Fraud and AML intelligence can be better connected. Combining signals across financial crime domains can provide a more complete view of networks, behaviours, and emerging threats.
• FCC effectiveness needs to be measurable. Board and regulatory stakeholders increasingly require evidence that controls are operating effectively and producing meaningful outcomes.

The Johannesburg Conclave reinforced that the next phase of AI in financial crime is moving beyond experimentation. For financial institutions, the focus is increasingly on how GenAI and Agentic AI can be implemented responsibly, governed effectively, and connected to measurable improvements in financial crime effectiveness.