Rhim Shah, Co-founder and CEO of Arva AI, is transforming business verification for banks and fintechs with AI-backed solutions, recently funded by Google AI. He previously led financial crime products at Revolut Business. In an interview with Asian Voice, Rhim spoke about his journey, future compliance in banking and fintech sectors, misconceptions about AI driven compliance and much more.
1) Can you tell us about the journey that led to the creation of Arva AI? What inspired you to focus on automating compliance tasks for banks and fintechs?
I previously led the financial crime product team at Revolut Business. We had a large team of analysts doing 10s of thousands of reviews a day — it was extremely mundane and repetitive compliance work that was needed to on-board our customers. Given the advancements in AI models, and my background in ML, I set out to solve this problem using Generative AI. After applying for funding at Y Combinator, my cofounder and I got in!
2) With financial regulations becoming more stringent globally, how do you see Arva AI evolving in the next five years? Are there new features or markets you’re targeting?
Trust is ever increasing in AI, even in regulated spaces such as financial services. As time goes on, models are getting even better and hence the risk of the systems not performing as intended is going from low to non-existent. Nonetheless, building Arva with guardrails in place has been a key aspect of why our customers trust us to automate their compliance operations. We have several AI products -- document fraud detection, web presence analysis, discounting of risk alerts and more. We have customers in the UK, US and Canada.
3) How do you see the future of compliance in the banking and fintech sectors? Will automation fully replace human oversight, or is there still a balance to be maintained?
For low/medium risk cases, we are moving towards a world where human analysts are completely replaced by AI. For high risk cases there will always have to be some level of human touch required, but AI will still play a big role in assistance, making a team of 3 analysts able to achieve what a team of 100 do right now. The next 5 years are going to be exciting, filled with transformation in the world of compliance operations!
4) What are the biggest misconceptions about AI-driven compliance that you would like to address?
That it is pure AI. The AI part is just the glue that keeps everything together, but actually there is a lot more required in the form of data access, document ingestion and more. A one shot AI approach doesn't create reliable results and wouldn't be able to replicate how a human analyst would treat a case. When we think of AI in the context of Arva it is an umbrella term for LLMs and vision models.
5) As a South Asian entrepreneur, how has your cultural background influenced your approach to business and innovation?
Coming from a family that has always been business focussed helped drive me to take the leap into starting my own venture. In fact, I've always wanted to start my own venture, having run and sold another startup during University.
My Mum is an extremely intelligent business woman, and much of the way that I run Arva AI has stemmed from her teachings. Her aptitude and intelligence for people and finance is unparalleled across any of our other mentors that I have -- I'm extremely lucky! Among all the mentors I've had, her insights and guidance stand out as both practical and profound. Whether it's about making tough financial decisions, understanding the human side of leadership, or staying resilient during challenging times, she has been my go-to source of wisdom.
6) What message would you like to share with young South Asians aspiring to enter the tech or fintech sectors?
There is a strong network of South Asian entrepreneurs both in the UK and the US, and anyone who is on the fence I urge you to take the leap to become a founder, using these networks as a support system. In fact, looking at our Y Combinator batch, a large proportion of the cohort comes from Indian origin. The entrepreneurial spirit and the drive to create value through a business venture is part of our Indian culture!
