PAObank, a member of Ping An Insurance, and OneConnect, an associate of Ping An, have been selected for the second cohort of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s (HKMA) Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenA.I.) Sandbox in partnership with Hong Kong Cyberport Management Company Limited.

Their joint project, the “Anti-Fraud Strategy Platform,” uses advanced AI to strengthen the detection of deepfake-related fraud, enhance risk management, and support fraud investigations to improve customer protection.

Within the HKMA’s sandbox environment, PAObank and OneConnect will continue refining the platform’s ability to identify deepfake technologies.

Using AI-powered facial recognition, the system verifies user selfies in real time, distinguishing between genuine and synthetically generated images to detect potential fraud and improve the bank’s risk controls.

Haibin Lin, Chief Technology Officer of PAObank, said,

“The experience we gain from this initiative will strengthen the industry’s ability to combat deepfake fraud, and we are committed to sharing our findings to support wider adoption of GenA.I. technologies across the banking industry.”

Ping An has consistently invested in AI research and development to support innovation across its businesses.

Serving about 247 million individual and over 4 million corporate clients, the Group leverages large-scale data resources as the foundation of its AI-driven solutions.

By June 2025, Ping An had accumulated more than 3.2 trillion textual data points, 310,000 hours of annotated audio data, and 7.5 billion images.

In the first half of 2025, the Group deployed large AI models in over 650 business scenarios, with 818 million usage calls, resulting in improvements in service efficiency, cost control, and risk management.

Its AI systems have enabled 94% of life insurance policies to be underwritten within seconds, handled 80% of customer service enquiries automatically, prevented RMB 6.44 billion in property insurance fraud losses, and supported AI-powered sales generating RMB 66.16 billion.

As Ping An’s fintech platform, OneConnect applies over three decades of the Group’s financial expertise and research capabilities.

Its AI-powered anti-fraud solution integrates more than 25 digital modules, including facial recognition, multi-country document verification, deepfake detection, and device risk assessment.

Designed in line with the HKMA’s e-banking security framework, the system has achieved a 99% success rate in defending against deepfake threats.

By mid-2025, OneConnect had served 214 enterprises across 21 countries and regions, becoming a trusted eKYC and anti-fraud partner for more than half of Hong Kong’s traditional retail banks.

Featured image credit: Edited by Fintech News Hong Kong, based on image by user850788 via Freepik