NICE Actimize has unveiled the agenda for its ENGAGE 2026 financial crime and compliance conference, which is expected to draw more than 700 executives from over 200 companies.
The New York event will focus on fraud prevention, anti-money laundering, compliance and the use of artificial intelligence in financial crime risk management. The programme includes keynote addresses, roundtables, analyst sessions and demonstrations on issues facing banks and other financial institutions.
The agenda highlights how prominently AI now features in the financial crime debate across banking. Sessions will examine transaction monitoring, payment fraud, organisational structures for managing threats, beneficial ownership verification and the growing use of manipulated media in onboarding scams.
Craig Costigan, Chief Executive Officer of NICE Actimize, is due to open the event with a keynote on the impact of agentic AI on financial institutions and fraud prevention. Gary Gensler, former Chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, is also scheduled to speak on global finance, compliance and technology, while Walter Pasquarelli is set to address AI, organised crime and synthetic reality.
Agenda focus
The programme reflects a market in which financial institutions are under pressure to modernise crime controls while coping with more complex fraud patterns. Named sessions include "The Next Frontier: The Future of Smarter, Adaptive Transaction Monitoring"; "Breaking Down Silos: How Leading FIs Organize for Modern Threats"; "Driving a Successful AML Transformation"; "The Scam Economy: The Industrialization of Payment Fraud"; and "When Your Evidence Lies: Onboarding in the Deepfake Era."
Roundtable discussions will also cover practical applications of AI in fraud prevention, the challenges of beneficial ownership data, AI-led anti-money laundering concerns, fraud strategy and case investigations. Law enforcement representatives will provide insight on emerging threats, suspicious activity report quality and public-private partnerships.
The mix of topics points to an industry grappling with both operational and regulatory demands. Banks must identify and stop faster-moving scams, manage cross-channel threats and respond to concerns that criminal groups are adopting generative AI tools as quickly as the institutions trying to defend against them.
Analyst input
Research firms IDC, Celent, Chartis Research and QKS Group are slated to take part in an Analyst Perspectives panel. Their inclusion suggests the event is designed not only as a customer forum but also as a venue for broader discussion about how vendors, banks and regulators are responding to changes in the fraud and compliance market.
NICE Actimize, which focuses on fraud detection, financial crime prevention and regulatory compliance software, says more than 1,000 organisations in over 70 countries use its products. It operates as a business within NiCE, a publicly listed technology group.
The conference outline also offers a snapshot of the issues occupying large financial institutions. Transaction monitoring remains a central area of investment as banks look to reduce false positives and improve detection. At the same time, payment fraud has become a board-level concern as instant payments and digital channels give criminals new opportunities to move funds quickly.
Deepfakes and synthetic identities are another recurring theme. As onboarding increasingly takes place through digital channels, firms face the challenge of verifying customers when images, audio and documents can be manipulated at low cost and at scale. This has pushed identity controls higher up the agenda for compliance and fraud teams.
Market pressures
Financial institutions are also rethinking how their internal teams are organised. One conference session focuses on breaking down silos, a reference to the long-standing separation between fraud, anti-money laundering and compliance functions. Many banks have been trying to connect these operations as criminals move across products and channels in ways that do not fit traditional organisational boundaries.
The prominence of AI in the agenda underlines how vendors and banks are framing the technology as both a defensive tool and a source of new risk. On one side, machine learning and related techniques are used to spot unusual behaviour and prioritise alerts. On the other, the spread of generative AI has raised fears that scams, impersonation attempts and document fraud will become harder to detect.
Costigan said the event is intended to help institutions assess that shift. "Addressing the impact of AI on financial crime, NICE Actimize's ENGAGE industry event supports financial institutions as they develop targeted strategies for their future adoption of cutting-edge technologies," he said.
He added: "Financial institutions require a powerful combination of intelligence and automation to meet their newest challenges, and our industry-leading event will allow them to network and explore innovative solutions and more effective and efficient options."