Automate AML?

I could use some advice settling a little debate with my roommate. We’re both college seniors getting ready to graduate this coming May. His degree is in accounting and mine is in computer science. He wants to become a licensed CPA, and I want to go to grad school for robotics.

Earlier this week, we got into a debate about white-collar crime. I was frustrated because of how widespread financial crime and corruption is in the market, and my roommate was trying to disagree. I was proposing that in a lot of cases, resorting to automation is probably safer and more efficient than existing methods.

My roommate asked for examples. My first one was global investing, since he’s a proponent of algorithmic stock trading. He wasn’t very convinced with the example, but I couldn’t think of any others because I don’t know much about financial crime. Are there other examples where technology can or already is preventing financial crime?