Dubai, United Arab Emirates — Dubai-based lender Mashreq has switched on generative artificial intelligence tools inside its fraud platform, built with Clari5 - A Perfios Company, with the aim of catching fraud more effectively, raising analyst productivity and supporting stronger investigative decisions.
The bank presented the capabilities at its Innovation Hub in Dubai, with senior leaders from both organizations in attendance. According to the announcement, the launch is meant to show how generative AI can be used inside a bank to complement the expertise and judgment of fraud professionals, rather than as a standalone system.
The new features came out of the continuing work between Mashreq and Clari5 and add to the fraud detection platform the bank already runs. The companies said they are intended to deliver two things: a smoother customer experience, through faster, more consistent and more effective detection, and stronger consumer confidence that Mashreq can keep customers safe and deal with new threats as they appear.
Seven executives represented the three companies at the event. From Mashreq Bank came Group Chief Executive Officer Ahmed Abdelaal; Fernando Morillo, SEVP Group Head of Retail Banking; Rania Nerhal, Group Chief Client Experience & Conduct Officer; and Ashish Tripathi, Senior Vice President, Senior Manager, Fraud Prevention & Detection. Perfios was represented by Nitin Chugh, MD and Group CEO, and Clari5 by Rivi Varghese, Co-Founder and CEO, and Dhruv Manga, Chief Revenue Officer.
Ahmed Abdelaal, Group Chief Executive Officer at Mashreq, said: “In an increasingly digital financial landscape, fraud is becoming more sophisticated, and the way banks respond must adapt accordingly. At Mashreq, we are committed to implementing AI responsibly in areas where it can have a meaningful impact, strengthening the resilience of our operations and the trust our customers place in us.”
Nitin Chugh, MD and Group CEO, Perfios, added: “Our collaboration with Mashreq demonstrates how generative AI can help banks tackle the growing complexity of financial crime by bringing together disparate information, accelerating investigations and enabling better-informed decisions. The goal is to augment investigators’ expertise, not automate judgement, while ensuring AI operates with the rigour and accountability that financial crime management demands.”
Rivi Varghese, Co-Founder and CEO, Clari5, stated: “Banks don’t need AI that acts on its own. They need AI they can govern by their own rules. Clari5 has shown how AI can operate on-premises inside a bank’s own environment, grounded in the bank’s context, and remain auditable, explainable and under human control.”
Rania Nerhal, Group Chief Client Experience & Conduct Officer at Mashreq, commented: “The value of generative AI lies in its ability to help us interpret relevant information and respond to emerging risks with greater speed, consistency, efficiency, and precision. This launch is part of our continued investment in deploying the latest technology to evolve our fraud risk management framework.”
The relationship between the bank and the software provider goes back several years. In a 2022 case study, Clari5 said Mashreq had moved away from monitoring fraud channel by channel toward a single enterprise-wide approach, and that its platform was helping the bank detect fraudulent transactions in real time across more than 15 channels and automate regulatory compliance.
Clari5 was founded in 2006 and developed by Bengaluru-based CustomerXPs. Indian software company Perfios acquired it in February 2025 for an undisclosed sum, and Clari5 continues to operate as a wholly owned subsidiary, according to FinTech Futures.
Clari5’s emphasis on on-premises operation, auditability and human control may appeal to banks working under these rules, which could need to show how an AI-assisted alert was reviewed and decided. The announcement did not give performance figures for the deployment, such as changes in detection rates or the time taken to close cases.
The launch follows another AI project at the bank. In October, Mashreq began piloting IBM Bob to apply agentic AI to integration engineering, with IBM reporting early cuts of up to 60–70% in the time engineers spent on design and troubleshooting.
Mashreq has been in business for nearly six decades and is headquartered in Dubai. Its services range from retail and Islamic banking to wealth management, treasury, global markets, transaction banking, and corporate and investment banking. Outside the UAE, the bank has a presence in Oman, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain, as well as Egypt, Pakistan, Türkiye, India, the UK, the U.S. and Hong Kong.
The bank reported record profit before tax of approximately $1.99 billion (AED 7.3 billion) for the nine months to September 30, 2026, up 18% year on year, with total assets above approximately $108.9 billion (AED 400 billion).
