“Compliance doesn’t have to be a bottleneck; it can be a
competitive advantage,” said Aydin Bonabi, CEO and co-founder of Surveill,
highlighting the transforming role of technology in financial services.
Speaking at the Finance Magnates London Summit 2025, he emphasized that modern
brokers face growing regulatory scrutiny while trying to scale their
businesses, and that AI tools are increasingly key to balancing speed and
oversight.
In an interview with Jonathan Fine, Content Strategist at
Ultimate Group, Bonabi expanded on these themes. A recurring topic across
panels and side discussions was “negative friction” in financial services—where
compliance,
traditionally seen as a cost center, can either hinder or accelerate growth
depending on how it is managed.
Bonabi argued that artificial intelligence is
reshaping how brokers manage risk without slowing operations, turning
compliance into a potential differentiator.
Surveill AI is a US-based compliance technology company that
provides AI-driven tools for monitoring communications, marketing, and
regulatory content in financial firms. Its platform uses rule-based artificial
intelligence to identify potential compliance risks, ensure adherence to
regulatory standards such as FINRA and the SEC, and
maintain traceable audit records.
The system is designed to support human compliance officers
while reducing the time and cost of oversight. The
company raised approximately $1 million in seed funding in 2025 to develop
its technology and expand its market presence.
Monitoring Influencer Marketing
Bonabi, speaking on the monitoring side of the compliance
equation, focused on one of the industry’s most persistent pain points:
oversight of introducing brokers and influencer-driven marketing. Regulators, particularly in the
UK, are paying close attention to what is being communicated to retail
clients, even when those messages originate far from a firm’s own marketing
department.
“Firms have the obligation to monitor these IBs,” Bonabi
said, noting that the distance between affiliates and the broker creates “a
tremendous amount of risk.” Surveill’s systems, he explained, scan published
marketing outputs across more than 190 languages to identify statements that
could mislead consumers or breach regulatory guidelines.
Aydin Bonabi (right) with Jonathan Fine at FMLS:25
Early Flagging Prevents Issues
The risk is not hypothetical. Bonabi pointed to cases where
AI-driven monitoring identified problematic claims made by affiliates that
could have resulted in regulatory action or reputational damage. By flagging
such issues early, he said, brokers were able to intervene before enforcement
costs mounted.
Compliance Meets Marketing
A notable point of agreement during the discussion was that
compliance and marketing are no longer operating in isolation. While compliance
teams remain the ultimate gatekeepers, Bonabi said Surveill increasingly works
directly with marketing departments—an approach that reflects changing internal
dynamics at brokers.
Reducing Approval Bottlenecks
“Marketing teams want to get content out as fast as
possible,” he said. “Compliance represents a bottleneck.” His argument was that
AI can ease this tension by reducing approval times from days to minutes,
without lowering regulatory standards. In this model, technology does not
replace compliance officers but augments them.
AI as Virtual Compliance Officer
Bonabi described Surveill’s AI as “a compliance officer that
is trained to operate like an in-house compliance officer,” built around
regulatory rules rather than probabilistic guesswork. Each flagged issue is
linked to a specific rule, accompanied by an explanation and a citation—an
effort to address regulators’ and firms’ demands for traceability and
transparency.
Managing AI Reliability
The question of AI reliability inevitably followed. Large
language models have drawn scrutiny for so-called hallucinations—confident but
incorrect outputs that can be dangerous in a regulated environment.
Bonabi was
candid about early challenges, saying initial hallucination rates were around
30 percent, though he claimed they have since been reduced to zero through what
he described as an “agentic framework” involving multiple AI checks on each
piece of content.
Human-Led AI Oversight
“We believe in the concept of human-led AI,” he said,
stressing that a human compliance officer still signs off on every decision.
The anecdote underscored a broader point echoed across the summit: AI adoption
in financial services is less about autonomy and more about controlled
scalability.
Changing Compliance Mindset
Looking beyond technology, Bonabi reflected on how attitudes
toward compliance have shifted over the past decade. Drawing on his experience
as an industry veteran and former FXCM executive, he said firms have long
viewed compliance as a “necessary cost center.” That mindset, he argued, is
increasingly at odds with the need to scale in a tightly regulated market.
Technology Reduces Operational Friction
“If compliance cannot scale, then there’s friction,” he
said. The opportunity, in his view, is to “unlock compliance and make
compliance a competitive advantage for the firm.”
That framing resonated with the summit’s broader narrative.
As regulatory scrutiny intensifies and marketing channels become more
diffuse—spanning influencers, affiliates, and
global audiences—manual processes are struggling to keep up. Technology, when
carefully governed, is emerging as a way to reduce friction rather than add to
it.
Compliance Shapes Growth Trajectory
Bonabi hinted that new client segments, including
proprietary and funded account firms, may soon come into focus, suggesting that
the same pressures are spreading beyond traditional retail brokerage
models.
For an industry facing growth constraints and increased
oversight, the discussion in London focused on compliance beyond enforcement.
How firms manage compliance may affect both the pace and sustainability of
their growth.
“Compliance doesn’t have to be a bottleneck; it can be a
competitive advantage,” said Aydin Bonabi, CEO and co-founder of Surveill,
highlighting the transforming role of technology in financial services.
Speaking at the Finance Magnates London Summit 2025, he emphasized that modern
brokers face growing regulatory scrutiny while trying to scale their
businesses, and that AI tools are increasingly key to balancing speed and
oversight.
In an interview with Jonathan Fine, Content Strategist at
Ultimate Group, Bonabi expanded on these themes. A recurring topic across
panels and side discussions was “negative friction” in financial services—where
compliance,
traditionally seen as a cost center, can either hinder or accelerate growth
depending on how it is managed.
Bonabi argued that artificial intelligence is
reshaping how brokers manage risk without slowing operations, turning
compliance into a potential differentiator.
Surveill AI is a US-based compliance technology company that
provides AI-driven tools for monitoring communications, marketing, and
regulatory content in financial firms. Its platform uses rule-based artificial
intelligence to identify potential compliance risks, ensure adherence to
regulatory standards such as FINRA and the SEC, and
maintain traceable audit records.
The system is designed to support human compliance officers
while reducing the time and cost of oversight. The
company raised approximately $1 million in seed funding in 2025 to develop
its technology and expand its market presence.
Monitoring Influencer Marketing
Bonabi, speaking on the monitoring side of the compliance
equation, focused on one of the industry’s most persistent pain points:
oversight of introducing brokers and influencer-driven marketing. Regulators, particularly in the
UK, are paying close attention to what is being communicated to retail
clients, even when those messages originate far from a firm’s own marketing
department.
“Firms have the obligation to monitor these IBs,” Bonabi
said, noting that the distance between affiliates and the broker creates “a
tremendous amount of risk.” Surveill’s systems, he explained, scan published
marketing outputs across more than 190 languages to identify statements that
could mislead consumers or breach regulatory guidelines.
Aydin Bonabi (right) with Jonathan Fine at FMLS:25
Early Flagging Prevents Issues
The risk is not hypothetical. Bonabi pointed to cases where
AI-driven monitoring identified problematic claims made by affiliates that
could have resulted in regulatory action or reputational damage. By flagging
such issues early, he said, brokers were able to intervene before enforcement
costs mounted.
Compliance Meets Marketing
A notable point of agreement during the discussion was that
compliance and marketing are no longer operating in isolation. While compliance
teams remain the ultimate gatekeepers, Bonabi said Surveill increasingly works
directly with marketing departments—an approach that reflects changing internal
dynamics at brokers.
Reducing Approval Bottlenecks
“Marketing teams want to get content out as fast as
possible,” he said. “Compliance represents a bottleneck.” His argument was that
AI can ease this tension by reducing approval times from days to minutes,
without lowering regulatory standards. In this model, technology does not
replace compliance officers but augments them.
AI as Virtual Compliance Officer
Bonabi described Surveill’s AI as “a compliance officer that
is trained to operate like an in-house compliance officer,” built around
regulatory rules rather than probabilistic guesswork. Each flagged issue is
linked to a specific rule, accompanied by an explanation and a citation—an
effort to address regulators’ and firms’ demands for traceability and
transparency.
Managing AI Reliability
The question of AI reliability inevitably followed. Large
language models have drawn scrutiny for so-called hallucinations—confident but
incorrect outputs that can be dangerous in a regulated environment.
Bonabi was
candid about early challenges, saying initial hallucination rates were around
30 percent, though he claimed they have since been reduced to zero through what
he described as an “agentic framework” involving multiple AI checks on each
piece of content.
Human-Led AI Oversight
“We believe in the concept of human-led AI,” he said,
stressing that a human compliance officer still signs off on every decision.
The anecdote underscored a broader point echoed across the summit: AI adoption
in financial services is less about autonomy and more about controlled
scalability.
Changing Compliance Mindset
Looking beyond technology, Bonabi reflected on how attitudes
toward compliance have shifted over the past decade. Drawing on his experience
as an industry veteran and former FXCM executive, he said firms have long
viewed compliance as a “necessary cost center.” That mindset, he argued, is
increasingly at odds with the need to scale in a tightly regulated market.
Technology Reduces Operational Friction
“If compliance cannot scale, then there’s friction,” he
said. The opportunity, in his view, is to “unlock compliance and make
compliance a competitive advantage for the firm.”
That framing resonated with the summit’s broader narrative.
As regulatory scrutiny intensifies and marketing channels become more
diffuse—spanning influencers, affiliates, and
global audiences—manual processes are struggling to keep up. Technology, when
carefully governed, is emerging as a way to reduce friction rather than add to
it.
Compliance Shapes Growth Trajectory
Bonabi hinted that new client segments, including
proprietary and funded account firms, may soon come into focus, suggesting that
the same pressures are spreading beyond traditional retail brokerage
models.
For an industry facing growth constraints and increased
oversight, the discussion in London focused on compliance beyond enforcement.
How firms manage compliance may affect both the pace and sustainability of
their growth.
