German Financial Authority: AI Helps Reveal Market Abuse

President of BaFin, Mark Branson (photo: x @Crypto_Potato)

JAKARTA - Germany's financial supervisory authority, the BaFin (Federal Financial Supervisory Authority), is now utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) to assist in detecting market abuse and suspicious trading patterns, which increase the chances of offenders being caught. This was conveyed by a top state official on Monday, June 2.

BaFin president Mark Branson said his agency had started using artificial intelligence since 2024 in their market analysis system and early warning.

"We can already see that the results of this analytical system are becoming more accurate," Branson said at a conference.

"The opportunity to be caught in a trade that abuses the market has never been this high before, and in Germany we know that the punishment for this violation can also be very severe," he added.

Under Branson's leadership, BaFin sought to improve his reputation after the collapse of Wirecard, a payment technology company that was once considered the pride of Germany and was once valued at up to US$28 billion (equivalent to Rp457 trillion).

BaFin previously failed to detect a major accounting scandal in Wirecard before the company went bankrupt in 2020. The failure prompted massive internal reforms, including a change of leadership and additional authority to BaFin to be sharper in identifying and investigating violations in the financial sector.