In the grand theatre of modern finance, where trillion-dollar transactions move through fibre-optic cables at light speed, one might expect that the mundane task of compliance checking would have been automated long ago. Yet in the back offices of banks and fintech firms around the world, armies of analysts still spend their days manually reviewing customer interactions, flagging suspicious activities, and ensuring adherence to an ever-expanding web of regulations. It is rather like discovering that Formula One cars still require someone to manually crank-start their engines.
Enter Rulebase, a London-based startup founded by two Nigerian engineers who believe they have found a better way. Gideon Ebose and Chidi Williams, who met in London and founded the company in 2024, have just raised $2.1 million in pre-seed funding led by Bowery Capital, with participation from Y Combinator, Commerce Ventures, Transpose Platform VC, and several angels. Their proposition is deceptively simple: replace the human drudges with artificial intelligence.
The problem they are addressing is both pervasive and expensive. While most financial institutions review only 3-5% of customer service interactions, Rulebase’s approach monitors 100% of customer service interactions using what the founders call an “AI co-worker.” This digital colleague can evaluate customer interactions, flag regulatory risks, and trigger appropriate follow-ups across tools like Zendesk, Jira, and Slack without losing context.
The appeal to cost-conscious financial executives is obvious. According to the company, their AI agents can result in up to 30% fewer escalations while reducing average handling time by 1-2 minutes per call. In an industry where efficiency gains are measured in basis points, such improvements represent substantial savings when multiplied across thousands of daily interactions.
But Rulebase’s ambitions extend beyond mere cost-cutting. Their system automatically gathers fraud evidence from tickets, creates dispute cases, and files them with payment networks and providers, while proactively following up to resolve tickets faster and ensuring 100% adherence to compliance and quality assurance service level agreements. It is, in effect, an attempt to transform reactive compliance into predictive risk management.
The timing appears fortuitous. Financial regulators worldwide are tightening their grip on institutions, demanding greater transparency and accountability. Simultaneously, the explosion of digital financial services has created an ocean of customer data that human analysts cannot hope to navigate effectively. The founders believe this precision focus creates defensibility in their business model.
Yet challenges loom. The financial services industry, despite its technological sophistication, remains deeply conservative about operational changes. Trust in algorithmic decision-making, while growing, is not absolute—particularly when regulatory compliance is at stake. Moreover, Rulebase’s usage-based pricing model, charging clients per interaction or workflow automated, may face resistance from institutions accustomed to predictable software licensing costs.
The broader implications, however, extend beyond any single startup’s fortunes. Rulebase represents the vanguard of what might be called “compliance automation”—the systematic replacement of human judgement in regulatory matters with algorithmic precision. If successful, it could herald a new era in which financial institutions operate with dramatically reduced overhead costs and enhanced regulatory adherence.
For Ebose and Williams, being among the few African founders building AI tools in Y Combinator brings both pride and perspective. Their success or failure will be watched keenly, not merely as a business outcome, but as a test of whether artificial intelligence can truly master the nuanced world of financial compliance.
The question, ultimately, is not whether machines can replace humans in routine compliance tasks—they almost certainly can. Rather, it is whether the financial world is ready to trust them to do so. The answer may determine not just Rulebase’s future, but the shape of finance itself.
The digital revolution in finance continues apace. This time, it promises to make even the dullest back-office work rather more interesting.
