Development of the Knowledge-based Systems for Anti-money Laundering in the Korea Financial Intelligence Unit

This case study shows constructing the knowledge-based system using a rule-based approach for detecting illegal transactions regarding money laundering in the Korea Financial Intelligence Unit (KoFIU). To better manage the explosive increment of low risk suspicious transactions reporting from financial institutions, the adoption of a knowledge-based system in the KoFIU is essential. Also since different types of information from various organizations are converged into the KoFIU, constructing a knowledge-based system for practical use and data management regarding money laundering is definitely required. The success of the financial information system largely depends on how well we can build the knowledge-base for the context. Therefore we designed and constructed the knowledge-based system for anti-money laundering by committing domain experts of each specific financial industry co-worked with a knowledge engineer. The outcome of the knowledge base implementation, measured by the empirical ratio of Suspicious Transaction Reports (STRs) reported to law enforcements, shows that the knowledge-based system is filtering STRs in the primary analysis step efficiently, and so has made great contribution to improve efficiency and effectiveness of the analysis process. It can be said that establishing the foundation of the knowledge base under the entire framework of the knowledge-based system for consideration of knowledge creation and management is indeed valuable.