Banks, Estonia, Financial Services, Good for Business, Internet, Investments, Technology

AML Bridge launch. From the left- K. Kessler, chair of the management board of the Estonian FSA, CEO of SEB Estonia A. Parik, CEO of Luminor E. Raasuke, CEO of LHV E. Kilu, Salv founder T. Tamkivi, CEO of Swedbank Estonia O.Lepp. Author Hannes Virkus

The startup recently introduced its pilot program titled AML Bridge in Estonia, in cooperation with four of Estonia's largest banks: LHV, Luminor, SEB Estonia and Swedbank Estonia. It engages in collaboration also with the Estonian Financial Supervision Authority, the Financial Intelligence Unit and the Data Protection Inspectorate, which are taking part in workgroups as consultants, Salv said.

Superangel led the most recent round with support from existing investors.

According to Taavi Tamkivi, the founder and CEO of Salv, several banks and fintech companies outside Estonia have expressed interest in applying a similar cooperative model.

"Currently, we see Latvia, Lithuania and the United Kingdom as the most probable next countries to implement the AML Bridge proof of concepts. Expanding the AML Bridge enables to draw extensive conclusions that are not limited to one particular jurisdiction and work out a model that is scalable all over the world," Tamkivi said.

Marten Ross, deputy secretary general for financial policy and external relations of the Estonian Ministry of Finance, said that Estonia's Ministry of Finance and financial regulators are open to cooperation with the financial and technology sector to jointly seek and develop new innovative technologies to prevent money laundering better and identify related risks.

"The AML Bridge pilot project, which is based on PET technology, is one that has the potential to be successful both in Estonia and more widely across Europe," Ross said. 

The startup's AML Bridge pilot was introduced in Estonia two months ago. The aim of this pilot is, first, to prove that collaborative crime-fighting in the banking industry is the best way to fight money laundering; second, to confirm that the Privacy Enhancing Technology (PET) enables safe, secure data sharing within the bounds of regulatory and data privacy laws in the European Union; and third, if the pilot proves successful, it should set a new AML standard for financial institutions across Europe to follow in Estonia's footsteps. 

Salv was founded in 2019 by Taavi Tamkivi as CEO, Jeff McClelland as COO, and Sergei Rumjantsev as CTO. Tamkivi previously built the AML, Fraud, and Know Your Customer (KYC) teams at Transferwise and Skype. Salv began developing its core technology in 2018 with a team mostly consisting of former Skype and Transferwise employees.

So far, Salv has raised more than 3.2 mln euros in venture capital investments.