Muhammad Umar Waqqas
KARACHI: As Gulf regulators intensify scrutiny on trade-based money laundering (TBML) and counter-terrorist financing (CFT), financial institutions across the region are under mounting pressure to ensure that trade financing channels do not become conduits for illicit flows. In response, a new technology player from Pakistan Trade iQ™ is emerging as a compelling, production-proven option for banks seeking to elevate controls without compromising the speed and ease of legitimate commerce.
Developed and deployed by trade compliance specialists with deep banking experience, Trade iQ is built as a unified platform rather than a collection of point solutions. It integrates all key phases of trade compliance, initial screening, continuous monitoring, holistic investigation, and regulatory reporting into a single, fully digital workflow. This enables banks to reduce manual hand-offs, eliminate duplicate checks, and accelerate decision-making with a complete, auditable trail.
Shahzad Arif, the CEO of AKS iQ, an AI technology company recognized for its flagship product, Trade iQ™ says “At the core of the system is an AI-driven rules engine that operationalizes policy across a wide range of risk scenarios. These include trade KYC and customer risk scoring, sanctions and politically exposed persons (PEP) screening, red-flag assessments involving dual-use goods and HS-code intelligence, fair-value and price variance analysis, vessel and container risk profiles, routing and transshipment risk, and real-time transaction behavior monitoring. Combined, they offer a 360-degree view of risk that supports consistent diligence at every step of the trade lifecycle. Trade iQ is already successfully running live with local and multinational banks in Pakistan and the UAE, and is supporting compliance across various international jurisdictions through existing customer networks. Architected with bank-grade security, high availability, and strong performance, the platform scales easily from individual trade desks to multi-country operations, a growing requirement as GCC banking groups standardize controls across subsidiaries and branches.”
He added “For regulators, visibility and explainability are now as important as coverage. Trade iQ addresses this shift by embedding transparent, supervisory-ready evidence into the heart of the system. Every rule is version-controlled and tied back to relevant policy or regulatory guidelines. Each alert includes contextual rationale, analyst documentation, attachments, and quality assurance trails; all feeding directly into management information dashboards. Boards, executives, and risk committees gain corridor-level insights into alert precision, reviewer productivity, turnaround time (TAT) improvements, and closure outcomes supporting regulatory expectations for continuous control assurance. Early adopters of the platform report compelling results: reductions in false positives that lower operational fatigue, measurable improvements in TAT from screening to closure, and the availability of clean, consolidated audit packages ready for internal validation and supervisory review. Banks emphasize the practical advantage of maintaining a single rulebook and single evidence trail across sanctions, pricing, routing, and behavioral assessments significantly reducing the risk of control gaps or policy drift.”
Shahzad Arif says “Trade iQ’s implementation model is structured to minimize disruption and accelerate value. Institutions commonly begin with focused flows, expand to all trade products in stages, and host joint review sessions with supervisory teams to demonstrate outcomes, governance structures, and model lifecycle management. The rise of Trade iQ also represents a broader evolution in Pakistan’s technology sector from outsourcing-heavy service delivery toward exportable, regulator-grade intellectual property tailored for global markets. For GCC and Saudi banks facing increasingly sophisticated financial crime risks, the platform offers a practical and timely proposition: unified controls, explainable AI, localization and data-sovereignty readiness, and supervisory-grade evidence by design.”
“As Gulf economies continue to expand their role in global trade corridors, the importance of strong, efficient, and harmonized trade compliance frameworks will only grow. Platforms like Trade iQ are positioning the region’s banks to meet this challenge, safeguarding financial integrity while powering the seamless flow of legitimate trade.” Shahzad Arif tells The Financial Daily.
 and counter-terrorist financing (CFT), financial institutions across the region are under mounting pressure to ensure that trade financing channels do not become conduits for illicit flows.){kind=link}