Can a computer learn to speak trader?

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Microsoft and Google can translate, say, Spanish to English, but who can translate finance speak? Up-and-coming compliance software firms are leaning into artificial intelligence to help crack esoteric trader argot, as Wall Street and London watchdogs increasingly dive into traders’ jargon-loaded and even coded messages to help fight financial crime.

Financial conspiracies are often built on the clandestine communications between financial professionals in which they agree to, for example, rig an interest-rate benchmark or increase the price at which a currency is trading. Even an educated lay person would need an insider to explain the lingo used between traders.

But compliance software companies are rushing to provide firms with AI tools that enable their systems to outsmart crooked traders. Compliance staff can use a tool from Behavox to input a chat between two traders and receive an explanation of what their slang means and whether they are potentially trying to do something illicit.

Behavox, a London-based compliance software company that sells to large banks, hedge funds and other firms, offers tools that can ingest the huge amount of messages that financial firm employees generate and look for the financial crime needle-in-the-haystack of jargon-laden, everyday work. Compliance staff can use the Behavox tool to input a chat between two traders and receive an explanation of what their slang means and whether they are potentially trying to do something illicit.