Automating Fintech with Google Vertex AI
Working with a major African fintech in partnership with two global financial institutions, we designed and deployed an AI-powered compliance and fraud detection platform on Google Cloud's Vertex AI. The platform automates KYC document verification, real-time transaction scoring, and regulatory reporting — dramatically reducing manual review burden while improving detection rates.
The Challenge
The client was processing tens of thousands of new account applications each month, each requiring KYC document verification. Manual review was a bottleneck: slow, expensive, and inconsistent. Simultaneously, transaction fraud was increasing in sophistication, and the existing rule-based detection system was generating unacceptable false positive rates that were degrading customer experience.
Our Solution
We built a two-component platform on Google Vertex AI. The first component is a document intelligence pipeline that uses Gemini to extract, classify, and verify KYC documents — routing clear cases to automated approval and flagging uncertain cases for human review with a structured risk summary. The second is a real-time transaction fraud scoring service, deployed as a low-latency Vertex AI endpoint, that scores every transaction using an ensemble of ML models trained on historical fraud data.
KYC Document Intelligence
The document processing pipeline ingests ID documents, proof of address, and business registration documents. Gemini extracts key fields, validates consistency across documents, and cross-references against watchlist databases. The system produces a structured risk assessment for each applicant — giving compliance officers the information they need to make fast, defensible decisions.
Real-time Fraud Scoring
Transaction scoring happens in under 50ms — fast enough to integrate with the payment authorisation flow without impacting approval rates. The model uses behavioural features, network graph signals, and device fingerprinting alongside traditional transaction attributes. A continuous learning loop retrains the model weekly on newly labelled fraud cases.
Regulatory Reporting Automation
Regulatory reporting is automated end-to-end: BigQuery aggregates the required metrics daily, Cloud Run generates formatted reports in the structure required by local regulators, and an audit trail of every automated decision is maintained for examination purposes.
Technology Stack
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