The Story of Amess: Building the Future of Financial Crime Prevention

The Story of Amess: Building the Future of Financial Crime Prevention

Sometimes the most successful companies start not with a revolutionary idea, but with a simple recognition: what if you could take something that works internally and share it with the entire industry? In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Fabrice Deprez shared how this insight led to the creation of Amess, a company transforming how banks fight financial crime.

From Consulting to Company Building

Fabrice’s journey to Amess wasn’t a straight line. With 20 years in consulting at firms like Accenture, Deloitte, and CNC, he developed a deep understanding of how large organizations operate. “I’ve worked around 20 years in consulting business, big American companies accenture, CNC, Deloitte, and so on,” he shares.

This experience proved invaluable when he took on the challenge of turning around a struggling IT company. “Six years ago, I had the opportunity to manage a small IT company which was, I would say, in financial difficulties. And we brought that company back with the team over a period of five years, back in business with a lot of growth potential.”

The KBC Connection

The real turning point came when KBC Group, one of Europe’s largest financial institutions, approached Fabrice with an interesting proposition. The bank had been investing in AI for over a decade, developing applications that were unique in the market. As Fabrice explains, “We are investing already for 15 years in cloud, ten years in AI, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and we have developed many applications.”

External validation from strategy consultants confirmed that some of these applications were truly unique, leading KBC to consider commercialization. “They recognized that a number of these applications were quite unique on the market… And of course, that raised the idea, while we can market that and generate a new revenue stream.”

Building from Scratch

Despite starting with proven technology, launching Amess wasn’t simple. “We had to build an organization, we had to attract people. We had to develop a commercial plan, financial plan, and just go on the market and put the name on the street,” Fabrice recalls.

The team chose to focus initially on anti-money laundering solutions, addressing a critical industry pain point. Current systems generate overwhelming false positives – “More than 90% of the work that the people are doing is just a false positive, meaning a work which was unnecessary.”

The Road to Independence

The strategy is already showing results. “We already have our first three customers outside the group which is already positive,” Fabrice notes. “We have an outlook of being financially independent as of mid of next year. So two years after launch being profitable.”

The Future of Amess

Looking ahead, Amess has ambitious plans. They’re expanding geographically – “We will move to Canada US as of end of the summer” – while simultaneously broadening their product suite. “We have a full roadmap of full financial crime which goes from AML fraud and sanctions, cyber protection and everything. So we should have by 26 a full pattern of solutions.”

But this is just the beginning. Fabrice envisions Amess expanding beyond their current focus: “We should have by 26 a full pattern of solutions covering all these subjects and in parallel we are evolving into securities domain and into the insurance domain as well.”

The goal? To become a market leader in financial crime prevention “on a worldwide scale.” With their unique approach to combining corporate resources with startup agility, Amess is well-positioned to achieve this vision and transform how financial institutions fight crime.