Australia’s biggest bank has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) tool to block abusive messages in digital transactions.
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) is using an AI model to discover digital payment transactions that include “harassing, threatening or offensive” messages.
The bank said in a “world first“ that it will share this AI model to help lower technology-facilitated abuse. CBA will make this technology accessible for free to any bank in the world.
The automatic filter has already blocked nearly one million transactions since 2020.
The AI model detects 1,500 high-risk incidents every year, the CBA said in a Nov. 8 statement.
AI Technology at CBA
CBA said that by using AI, the bank is showing how technology can create a safer banking experience for all customers, especially those in “vulnerable circumstances.”
CBA customer advocate Angela MacMillan said the bank developed the technology because they noticed “some customers” were using transaction descriptions to harass or threaten others. She said financial abuse occurs when money is used to gain control over a partner.
“By sharing our source code and model with any bank in the world, it will help financial institutions have better visibility of technology-facilitated abuse. This can help to inform action the bank may choose to take to help protect customers.”
The AI model was developed by CBA, with the source code built together with global AI company H2O.ai.
This source code is publicly available online via the bank’s partnership with H2O.ai on GitHub.
Police Referral Pilot
The latest news follows the bank launching a “police referral pilot“ in New South Wales on Aug. 6.
At the time, the CBA said that it was building on its use of AI and other technologies to detect and block abuse in transaction descriptions, working with the police.
As part of the pilot, CBA’s “Next Chapter” team contacts a customer if they are receiving repeated abuse in transaction descriptions.
If the customer consents, the CBA then reports the abuse on their behalf to the NSW Police.
“CBA is working with the NSW Police to develop a new streamlined process that will allow CBA to report abuse with the consent of the victim-survivor,” the bank said.
“Once the customer has consented to CBA reporting the issue to police, CBA will initiate a report to the NSW Police. Victims of this kind of abuse can also contact CBA and ask CBA to report these instances of abuse on their behalf.”
