Corruption Risk is still top of mind with regulators. Digitizing the approach is proving cost-effective and reliable.

“Compliance monitoring over third-party payments is now fundamental to an effective corporate compliance program. Not since BrewRIGHT have I seen a platform that measurably predicts potentially improper payments, circumvention of controls and corrupt payments as effectively as Kona AI. Their platform is AI-driven, using proven models tested in the field and validated with both academia and compliance professionals. It is also easy-to-use, intuitive and rapidly deployable to support both investigations and proactive compliance monitoring programs.”

– Matt Galvin, Former Head of Compliance at Anheuser-Bush InBev, now a Research Fellow at Harvard Business School

In June 2021, the Biden Administration issued a briefing document establishing the fight against corruption as a core U.S. national security interest. Add to it the war in Ukraine, high inflation, supply chain issues and a depressed stock market and you have the perfect storm for fraud, corruption, waste and abuse.

For years, the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) Report to the Nations on Occupation Fraud suggests that companies lose up to 5% of their revenues annual to fraud and corruption, at an average lost of $1.783 million per case (Source). But this number continues to remain at 5% every year – why aren’t we showing improvement? The answer may lie in how we prevent and detect fraud, corruption and circumvention of controls. The time is now to rethink traditional rules-based tests and manual processes that generate too many false positives, and worse…false negatives.

The challenge with current compliance technology tools is they focus solely on the due diligence and pre-approval workflows during the vendor or third-party onboarding process. Leading tools like Navex or Process Unity among many others focus on pre-approval workflow, due diligence screening, vendor questionnaires, training and whistle blower case management among several other features supporting the third parties. But once the contract with the third party is signed, it’s never looked at again – unless it becomes in scope for an internal audit, or worse, subject to a whistleblower allegation that requires investigation. Fraud and corruption happen after the contract is signed with the third-party – where money is exchanged, invoices are created and cash is paid out. It just makes sense that legal and compliance professionals include payment and transaction monitoring into their compliance program.

In fact, the U.S. DOJ states in their June 2020 Guidance specifically calls out ongoing monitoring activities when it asks, “Does the company engage in risk management of third parties throughout the lifespan of the relationship, or primarily during the onboarding process?”
(Source)

What companies need is an AI driven platform built for investigators, compliance and internal audit professionals that finds hidden money faster, with measurable improvements in your anti-fraud, anti-corruption and corporate compliance program in line with regulator expectations – particular the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Security & Exchange Commission.

Kona AI brings years of investigative experience from the Big 4 firms, as well as leading academic institutions from MIT and Harvard Business School in the development of our proprietary library of behavioral algorithms and predictive models vetted from decades of cumulative industry experience. Nobody, and I mean nobody, can empower you to cost-effectively rip through procure-to-pay, order-to-cash or travel & entertainment as well as Kona AI.

Kona AI is not a software company. We are an AI-driven company that uses software to easily and intuitively deliver vetted and reliable predictive models that statistically measure risky payments via our Vendor 360 Module, risky sales via our Customer 360 Module and risky travel & entertainment expenses via our Employee 360 Module.