Navan deploys AI to detect corruption risks

The tool is designed to alert relevant teams to risks that may accompany suspicious activity

Business travel and expense specialist Navan has added an anti-corruption module to its Audit Engine. Drawing on the vast pool of transactions it has already processed, the tool is designed to flag anomalies and alert the relevant teams to risks that may accompany suspicious activity.

Until now, Navan offered a proactive solution to detect potential fraud. The platform analyses millions of transactions and flags those that, due to anomalies, cannot be approved automatically. The same mechanism will now be applied across all transactions to help prevent corruption or extortion risks.

Identifying risks, fraud and policy breaches

The company warns of the risk posed by transactions involving third parties, particularly people who are politically exposed or subject to court orders or sanctions. The system is aimed specifically at preventing violations of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). Until now, this risk tended to be managed with tools separate from those used to approve expense claims.

“Finance leaders typically rely on a multitude of systems or human resources to identify risks, fraud and breaches of spend policies,” said Yuval Refua, Chief Product Officer, Payments & Expense at Navan. “Yet protecting a company is first and foremost a question of data volume and processing. With its AI, Navan is ideally placed to meet this challenge.”

The system relies on 45 checkpoints that include, Navan says, “anti-corruption and anti-extortion alerts”. While 75% of transactions are approved automatically, the remainder require human validation. The system can identify excessive tips, AI-generated fraudulent receipts or prohibited purchases, without alerting the employee suspected of wrongdoing.

“Our audit engine uses multiple language models to scrutinise every transaction,” said Refua. “By multiplying the capacity of finance teams, Navan eliminates hours of manual investigation so they can focus only on cases that require human judgement.”

Navan says Audit Engine can be enabled with a single click on the platform. The dedicated anti-corruption and anti-extortion module, currently in beta, will be rolled out globally in due course.