From the street, Core Bank might look like a traditional community bank. Headquartered in Omaha, with banking centers in Omaha and Overland Park, Kansas, it holds about $1 billion in assets and serves local businesses and families with business banking, mortgage and construction lending, wealth services, and personal banking.

The bank also operates Core•X, its sponsor banking division, which provides the banking services that enable fintech and software companies to offer deposit accounts, money movement, and cards to their own customers. Those programs generate ACH, wire, RTP, FedNow, card, and check activity, and Core•X supports them through multiple compliance models.

For a bank of Core Bank's size, that combination makes for a varied compliance workload. Its AML analysts review alerts from long-standing business customers and from fintech programs whose products and customers can differ widely. Across the bank's traditional and Partner Banking operations, a standard alert review takes an estimated 15 to 20 minutes, and up to 30 for a new or more complex customer.

As sponsor banks expand their fintech partnerships, their compliance teams must manage increasingly diverse transaction activity while maintaining consistent oversight. For Core Bank, that challenge is shaping how it brings AI into its AML operations. Core Bank is using Oscilar's Agentic Risk Platform to reduce manual work, improve investigation consistency, and support its AML analysts with AI agents.

Its approach shows how sponsor banks can bring AI into their compliance operations while keeping human oversight central to the investigation process.

TL;DR

• The bank: Core Bank, a $1 billion Omaha community bank, has used Oscilar for financial crime monitoring and investigations across its traditional and Core•X sponsor banking operations since 2024.

• The challenge: As Core•X grows its fintech partnerships, new products, transaction patterns, and risk profiles make consistent AML investigations increasingly important.

• Agents in action: Core Bank is using AI agents to streamline investigation documentation and support alert reviews, with analysts retaining final decision-making authority.

• The impact: AI-generated narratives give analysts a consistent starting point, reducing manual drafting work and supporting more standardized investigations.

• The playbook for sponsor banks: Configure monitoring for different programs, use AI to support verifiable investigations, and measure results before claiming efficiency gains.

Where Core Bank started: Manual reviews across a growing set of fintech programs

Core Bank has nearly doubled in size since 2018, when it reported $525 million in assets, to about $1.07 billion as of the second quarter of 2026. Looking ahead, its plans for the next year include more fintech relationships and product offerings through Core•X, alongside continued service to its established business banking customers.

For a sponsor bank, growth brings additional compliance complexity. Different fintech programs can introduce new products, transaction patterns, and customer risk profiles. Core Bank needs investigation workflows that can accommodate that variation without sacrificing consistency.

Much of the investigative work is still manual. For each alert, an analyst gathers transaction and customer information, evaluates the activity, and documents a decision. Until narrative agents arrived, analysts also drafted every narrative by hand, copying and pasting details and looking elsewhere for information the platform already held. When analysts approached reviews and wrote narratives in different ways, the inconsistency turned into additional quality control work.

A flexible foundation built around Core Bank's needs

Core Bank needed a platform that could adapt to the different risks, products, and transaction patterns across its sponsor banking programs. Since 2024, the bank has relied on Oscilar for transaction monitoring, customer risk rating, and case management. What set Oscilar apart was the ability to build monitoring rules around their own unique needs, rather than work within rigid, predefined configurations.

"With Oscilar, as long as you can write it, you can build it."

Erica Wise, Product Owner, Core Bank

That flexibility is especially valuable in sponsor banking, where every fintech program can bring a different risk profile. Core Bank can tailor AML monitoring to the programs it supports and adapt as its business grows. Now, it's extending that same configurability to AI, bringing agents into existing investigation workflows and tuning them to the bank's own procedures.

Putting narrative agents to work in AML investigations

Core Bank is already using AI agents to streamline one of the most time-consuming parts of AML investigations: documentation. Two of Oscilar's narrative agents are live: the Case Narrative Agent, which drafts alert and case narratives, and the SAR Narrative Agent, which prepares SAR narratives.

Rather than writing each narrative from scratch, analysts start with an AI-generated draft grounded in Core Bank's procedures, documentation examples, and available evidence. Analysts review the output, add any missing context, and finalize the narrative.

For Core Bank, this means less manual drafting and more consistent documentation across its traditional banking business and fintech programs. By giving analysts a common starting point while allowing them to account for the specifics of each investigation, Oscilar helps the bank standardize workflows without losing the flexibility its sponsor banking business requires.

Beyond documentation with the AML L1 Agent

Core Bank is taking AI a step further with Oscilar's AML L1 Agent. Designed to handle more of the investigative work, the agent gathers transaction and customer evidence, recommends alert dispositions, and works with the Case Narrative Agent to turn its analysis into a documented narrative. Analysts review the evidence, investigate further when needed, and retain final decision-making authority.

To prepare the agent for Core Bank's workflows, Oscilar worked closely with the bank to map its investigation procedures and test the agent against historical alerts. The early results demonstrated alignment with past analyst decisions and the agent's ability to surface specific evidence for review.

"I like that [the agent] is fact-based and not making assumptions…we have found value in it for sure."

Katelyn O'Brian, AML Team Lead, Core Bank

Following the proof of concept, Core Bank implemented the AML L1 Agent and continues to refine it around its own investigation procedures. For Tyrell Velasquez, Core Bank's Director of Financial Crimes and BSA Officer, the ongoing partnership with Oscilar was a key factor in moving forward.

"The biggest selling point that made it a no-brainer for us is our continued partnership with Oscilar. Knowing that you're going to be in our corner, helping build it to where it needs to be," said Tyrell Velasquez, Director of Financial Crimes, BSA Officer, Core Bank

Agents in AML: A Production Playbook from the Investigator’s Seat

In this playbook, Seth Sattler ( Head of Compliance/AML at Oscilar) lays out a practical guide for deploying AML agents in production. Drawing on live deployments and active evaluations across banks, fintechs, payments platforms, and digital asset firms, Seth explains how compliance teams can use agents to reduce investigative assembly work while keeping analysts responsible for judgment, accountability, and final decisions.

FREE RESOURCE

Agents in AML: A Production Playbook from the Investigator’s Seat

In this playbook, Seth Sattler ( Head of Compliance/AML at Oscilar) lays out a practical guide for deploying AML agents in production. Drawing on live deployments and active evaluations across banks, fintechs, payments platforms, and digital asset firms, Seth explains how compliance teams can use agents to reduce investigative assembly work while keeping analysts responsible for judgment, accountability, and final decisions.

FREE RESOURCE

Agents in AML: A Production Playbook from the Investigator’s Seat

In this playbook, Seth Sattler ( Head of Compliance/AML at Oscilar) lays out a practical guide for deploying AML agents in production. Drawing on live deployments and active evaluations across banks, fintechs, payments platforms, and digital asset firms, Seth explains how compliance teams can use agents to reduce investigative assembly work while keeping analysts responsible for judgment, accountability, and final decisions.

FREE RESOURCE

Agents in AML: A Production Playbook from the Investigator’s Seat

In this playbook, Seth Sattler ( Head of Compliance/AML at Oscilar) lays out a practical guide for deploying AML agents in production. Drawing on live deployments and active evaluations across banks, fintechs, payments platforms, and digital asset firms, Seth explains how compliance teams can use agents to reduce investigative assembly work while keeping analysts responsible for judgment, accountability, and final decisions.

FREE RESOURCE

Agents in AML: A Production Playbook from the Investigator’s Seat

In this playbook, Seth Sattler ( Head of Compliance/AML at Oscilar) lays out a practical guide for deploying AML agents in production. Drawing on live deployments and active evaluations across banks, fintechs, payments platforms, and digital asset firms, Seth explains how compliance teams can use agents to reduce investigative assembly work while keeping analysts responsible for judgment, accountability, and final decisions.

FREE RESOURCE

Rethinking the AML analyst's role with AI agents

For Core Bank, the opportunity goes beyond faster investigations. As Core•X expands its fintech partnerships, the bank sees AI agents as a way to shift analysts away from repetitive tasks and toward higher-value review work.

"We're looking at transitioning our staff to more QC of alert dispositions and not necessarily production work. The AML L1 agent is going to help with that."

Tyrell Velasquez, Director of Financial Crimes, BSA Officer, Core Bank

By using agents to automate evidence gathering and narrative preparation, Core Bank aims to give analysts more time to evaluate findings, investigate unusual activity, and exercise judgment.

For Katelyn O'Brian, the potential extends to greater consistency and more predictable staffing needs.

"With the use of AI, it can provide more consistency in the data and the time spent, and allow us to better prepare and look ahead as far as staffing goes."

Katelyn O'Brian, AML Team Lead, Core Bank

Core Bank is taking a measured approach to that transition. Analysts retain responsibility for final dispositions, supported by the human oversight built into Oscilar's agents. The bank plans to track review times, narrative edits, alert volumes, and case cycle times to evaluate the impact.

As Core•X grows, that approach gives Core Bank a path toward scaling AML investigations with AI agents while keeping its analysts focused on the decisions that matter.

See how Oscilar supports AI-assisted AML investigations. Read the full Core Bank case study or speak with an expert today.

Core Bank Gives Its AML Analysts an AI Teammate

See how Core Bank is putting AI agents to work in AML investigations, cutting back on manual tasks and giving analysts more time to focus on what matters as its sponsor banking business grows.

Read the full case study

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