What is source of funds?

Source of funds is the origin of the specific money used in a transaction or to fund a relationship: a salary, the sale of a property, a loan, an inheritance, business profits. Firms ask for it when risk is higher, to check the money is legitimate. AI agents can read and reconcile the evidence; accepting it is a person's call.

Why does source of funds matter once agents act?

Source of funds evidence arrives as a pile of documents: bank statements, completion statements, sale contracts, payslips, loan offers. The work is reconciliation: does the money that arrived match what the documents say, in amount, date and route? It is detailed, tedious and well suited to an agent.

The risk is in what the documents are. Most are supplied by the customer and are declared evidence, sometimes altered. An agent that treats a supplied statement as proof has missed the point of the check. The question of whether an AI agent can verify source of funds and source of wealth turns on that distinction, and on the second-line role of compliance agents.

How does a source of funds review work in practice?

A reviewer traces the money backwards from the account it arrived in:

1. Identify the incoming funds: amount, date, sending account and sender.
2. Obtain the explanation: what the customer says the money is.
3. Match the evidence: documents that show the funds arising, such as a sale completion, and moving to the sending account.
4. Check consistency: does the explanation fit the customer's profile and history?
5. Decide: accept, ask for more, or escalate.

Our guide on reviewing source of funds evidence with an AI agent marks who acts at each step.

An example from a property purchase

Take a lender reviewing a deposit of 150,000 for a house purchase. The customer says it came from the sale of a flat. The agent reads the completion statement, which shows net proceeds of 162,000 paid to the customer's account on a stated date, and the bank statement, which shows that credit and a transfer of 150,000 to the deposit account a week later.

The figures reconcile. But the agent notes that the completion statement was supplied by the customer, not by the solicitor, and recommends confirming it with the solicitor directly. An analyst agrees, the solicitor confirms, and the file is closed with the evidence and its provenance recorded.

How is source of funds different from source of wealth?

Source of funds is narrow: where did this money come from? Source of wealth is broad: how did this person build their total net worth over time? A customer could show perfectly clean source of funds for one deposit from a sale, while their wider wealth remains unexplained.

Firms usually need both in higher-risk cases, but for different reasons. Source of funds tests the transaction; source of wealth tests whether the customer's overall picture makes sense.

Which terms sit next to source of funds?

• Enhanced due diligence: the context where source of funds is most often required.
• Proof of funds: evidence that money exists and is available, which is not the same as showing where it came from.
• Reconciliation: matching amounts and dates across documents, the core of the review.

Where Pryme fits

In Pryme, a statement uploaded by the customer is declared, a confirmation sent by a solicitor's verified address is signed, and a credit visible in the firm's own ledger is sealed. The agent's draft shows which evidence sits in which class, so the analyst can see exactly what still rests on the customer's word.