2025 End-of-Year Product Recap: The Year of the Risk-Fighting Platform

2025 was a turning point. Financial crime evolved faster than ever, but so did the tools to stop it. This year, Unit21 delivered a series of high-impact updates that empowered compliance and fraud teams to move faster, think smarter, and act decisively.

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In this post, we’re recapping the most transformative features and product launches we released in 2025. Whether you’re just getting started or have been with us from the beginning, these updates reflect our mission to make risk and compliance operations smarter, simpler, and significantly more powerful.

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Smarter, Faster Investigations: AI That Powers Detection and Insight

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AI took a giant leap forward in 2025. No longer just a buzzword, it became an operational ally. The AI Suite is built to support two core workflows: Detection and Investigation.

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For Detection, we introduced AI-powered Check Fraud detection that analyzes both sides of a check image to identify forged or manipulated elements. It works alongside AI Rule Recommendations, which automatically suggest optimizations to detection models based on investigator behavior and alert outcomes. Anomaly Detection Models also joined the suite, providing another layer of pattern recognition without requiring teams to hard-code every signal.

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On the Investigation side, we launched alert-level AI Recommendations that help analysts triage faster and smarter. With a single click, investigators can now generate an AI-written narrative, summarizing key elements of a case in seconds. Teams even began creating custom AI agents using our BYOA (Build Your Own Agent) feature, tailoring AI responses to specific fraud types like ATO or scams. Every AI action is also logged in the Audit Trail to support transparency and compliance.

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2025 proved AI can boost both speed and precision, without sacrificing control. This means less fraud gets through without slowing legitimate customers down.

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Real-Time Risk Defense: Instant Decisions with Contextual Intelligence

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Fraud moves fast, and this year, we gave our customers the speed to match it. Real-Time Rules now run in milliseconds, enabling instant decisions as transactions come through. But speed alone isn't enough, so we combined this power with Velocity Logic and Device Intelligence.

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Velocity Rules detect rapid, abnormal behavior, such as a card being tested multiple times in under a minute, or a user logging in from multiple locations in seconds. These behaviors are caught through threshold logic that flags risk based on volume and frequency, not just static values.

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Device Intelligence expands context by analyzing device characteristics. Is the user on a jailbroken or rooted device? Are they running from an emulator? Is this the same device used in other fraud cases? Combining device fingerprints with velocity thresholds has enabled our customers to flag high-risk behavior earlier, with greater accuracy.

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Dynamic Decisions takes this one step further: when suspicious activity is detected, the system can deny the transaction, prompt for additional verification, or allow it to continue, all in real time. This protects the user experience while strengthening security. Read the full blog.

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Full-Lifecycle Screening: Catch Risk from Onboarding to Payment

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Screening isn’t just an onboarding task anymore. Regulators increasingly expect continuous monitoring, and not just one-time checks. In 2025, we extended our Watchlist capabilities to cover the entire customer lifecycle.

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New onboarding screening workflows let teams run real-time checks against sanctions, PEP, and adverse media lists at the point of sign-up. But the real magic came with Ongoing Monitoring: customers could now continuously screen their entire book of business for new risks, alerts, or profile changes. This ensures that previously low-risk customers don't go unnoticed if their risk level increases.

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We also introduced Payment Screening, which allows compliance teams to flag suspicious transactions in real time, before they’re processed. With these enhancements unified under one case management flow, teams could now see onboarding, monitoring, and transactional alerts in a single place, reducing alert duplication and investigation fatigue.

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Adaptive Rule Logic: Use Risk Scores to Tune Detection Precision

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Risk scoring became more actionable in 2025. Customer Risk Ratings (CRR) could now be used directly inside Unit21's Detection Model Builder.

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Rather than relying solely on static rule logic, teams began building dynamic rules that incorporate CRR values. For example, a user with a high-risk score could be flagged for additional scrutiny even if their transaction size was small. The system also supported segmentation, allowing teams to test and deploy different thresholds based on customer type or behavior.

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This change empowered teams to build rules that adapt to customer profiles, reducing false positives while catching subtle, high-risk activity.

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Reduce False Positives: Smarter Matches with Better Data Inputs

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When regulators send a 314(a) list, accuracy matters. In 2025, we expanded our matching capabilities to go beyond just name and entity ID.

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Now, Unit21 supports matching on SSN, date of birth, and address, dramatically increasing match accuracy. We also refined our fuzzy matching logic to reduce false positives and ensure that alerts are more actionable.

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With these improvements, analysts could spend less time reviewing false hits and more time investigating real risk.

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Seamless Reporting: File CTRs Directly Without System Hopping

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In 2025, we brought CTR filing into Unit 21, no exports, no juggling systems.

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Users can now complete and submit Currency Transaction Reports (CTRs) directly to FinCEN within the platform. Fields auto-fill from existing alert and case data, and the submission is logged in a centralized audit trail.

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The result: faster, simpler reporting and improved compliance workflows.

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Transparent Alerts: Know Exactly Why Something Flagged — Instantly

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Explainability isn’t optional anymore, whether you’re training new team members or preparing for an audit, clarity matters.

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"Why Did This Flag?" adds transparency to every alert by breaking down the exact conditions that triggered it. Teams can now see which thresholds were crossed, what data matched, and how risk scores were calculated, all within the alert view.

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This makes it easier to investigate cases, justify decisions, and ensure audit readiness across the board.

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Automated STRs for Canada: Direct FINTRAC Filing Built-In

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Canadian compliance teams got a major upgrade with built-in FINTRAC filing.

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Users can now submit Suspicious Transaction Reports (STRs) directly to FINTRAC from within Unit21, reducing the need to toggle and manually enter data. By the end of Q1 2026, you can expect to see the system pull from alert and entity data to pre-populate fields, streamlining the entire process.

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This release not only saves time but also ensures that Canadian compliance obligations are met with greater consistency and lower error rates.

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Stronger Data Pipelines: Real-Time Integrations with Core Banking Partners

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2025 also marked a leap forward in data connectivity, thanks to new direct integrations with two key partners: Alkami and Corelation.

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These integrations eliminate the need for financial institutions to act as data middlemen. Instead, Unit21 connects directly with Alkami and Corelation, enabling a seamless data pipeline without additional lifting from your engineering team. For Alkami users, particularly digital banks and credit unions, this means real-time data delivery into Unit21, fully optimized for Real-Time Rules and other time-sensitive detections.

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The integration with Corelation brings similar benefits, providing updated data feeds every five minutes. While real-time rule support is still being built out with Corelation, the foundational connection is already live and functional.

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With customers already in production on both integrations, these partnerships are more than just technical;, they're operationally proven. These integrations help institutions activate powerful detection and monitoring without weeks of custom development, and they’re setting a new standard for speed and simplicity in implementation.

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Auto-Assign Smarter: Balance Workloads with Round Robin Queues

One of the most practical but impactful upgrades of 2025 was the launch of Round Robin Auto Assignment. Designed with program managers in mind, this feature automates the distribution of alerts across teams on a scheduled basis, eliminating manual assignment bottlenecks and ensuring a balanced queue.

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With Round Robin, queues can now be configured to assign alerts to analysts at regular intervals (e.g., every five minutes), based on pre-set rules around workload, alert priority (e.g., transaction value, age), and team eligibility. Program managers can define assignment limits to avoid overload, while availability toggles ensure alerts aren’t routed to users on PTO or out of office.

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Beyond operational efficiency, this automation frees up team leads to focus less on routing logistics and more on quality assurance, training, and scaling programs.

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Make Ops Measurable: Track Compliance Performance in Real-Time

You can’t improve what they can’t see. Unit21’s Program Efficiency dashboards turn compliance operations into a measurable, manageable system, giving teams real-time visibility into workloads, bottlenecks, and regulatory outcomes. From alerts to SARs, every metric is actionable, with one-click access into Case Management to drive faster decisions and stronger compliance programs.

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What’s Next: Precision Detection and More Automation in 2026

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Looking ahead, 2026 is set to deepen the automation toolkit. Teams will gain the ability to orchestrate rules into decision trees, enabling clearer, singular outcomes per event, removing the need for downstream logic stitching. 

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Dynamic decisions will further enhance this by letting real-time rules instantly determine whether to allow, deny, or escalate an action. CRR (Customer Risk Rating) values will soon be available within real-time detection models, enabling even more precise rule tuning. Additionally, allow listing will be supported within RTR, helping teams suppress noise and focus on unknown risk. 

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Finally, the launch of transaction-level risk ratings will offer scoring precision at the event level, paving the way for more intelligent fraud control strategies. And for cases beyond onboarding, ad hoc screening will enable investigators to screen external entities or counterparties as needed, offering flexibility without compromising due diligence.

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2025 in Review: A Year of Scalable Risk Defense

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From real-time decisions to lifecycle screening to built-in reporting, 2025 was the year Unit21 became more than just a platform; it became a force multiplier for fraud and compliance teams. We’ve focused relentlessly on helping you move faster, act smarter, and reduce risk without adding overhead. Every feature released this year supports that mission, and the 2026 roadmap is shaping up to go even further.

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If you’re already a Unit21 customer, now is the perfect time to revisit your setup. Make sure you’re taking advantage of the full platform, from AI recommendations to customer risk scoring to automated filings. If you need help or want a tune-up, reach out to your Customer Success Manager; we’ve got your back.

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And if you’re not yet using Unit21? Now’s the time. Get a personalized demo and see why leading institutions are leaving legacy tools behind. The future of risk and compliance is faster, more intelligent, and fully in your control.