Financial crime

Sanctions screening

Access quality, relevant risk intelligence sanctions-screening data to help you meet your regulatory obligations quickly and efficiently.

Request details

Sanctions are protective restrictive measures, such as an asset freeze or block, investment or travel ban, financial sanctions, arms and trade embargoes.

There are varying sanctions types including: explicit sanctions, where the subject is named; narrative or implicit sanctions, which don’t specifically name an individual or company but extend to entities covered by a narrative statement on a sanctions programme due to their connections to the main sanctioned entity; and sectoral sanctions. Sanctions can be applied against but not limited to a country, entity, individual, organisation and vessel.

Sanctions are our highest priority and receive dedicated attention, major sanctions lists (OFAC, EU, UN) are monitored and covered on a 24/7/365 basis. We have 470+ researchers situated in 240 countries and territories on five continents, 90+% speaking two or more languages. There are currently 57,000+ active sanctions records across more than 300+ sanction programmes as part of the World-Check sanctions-screening coverage.

We monitor 10,000+ global information resource lists, 800+ sanction, regulatory, law enforcement lists and 5,900+ official/government sites and we add 50,000+ new records monthly.

Image stating Refinitiv has won 'Best Solution for Sanctions Management at the RegTech Insight Awards 2022 Europe

What is sanctions screening?

Sanction compliance poses a challenge to organisations as not only is it an ever-changing landscape, but there is no finite sanctions list to follow and organisations must nevertheless ensure that they do not transact with any blocked entity.

Screening for sanctions risk is a mandatory requirement for regulated entities across all sectors and is a critical step in the know your customer or KYC process. Moreover, penalties for breaching sanctions can be severe. In 2021 the US Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control meted out fines amounting to over US $20 million, 10 of the 20 penalties were levied at corporates. In 2020 the penalties amounted to US $23 million and only two were financial institutions.

Ensuring your organisation has a robust sanctions-screening programme in place is essential. Access to comprehensive and accurate sanctions risk data is therefore critical.

Graphical illustration of sanctions screening with warning signs identified in companies and profiles

Our solution

Need help to comply with the stringent sanction regulations?

Our suite of solutions provide everything you need to help you stay compliant in an evolving sanctions landscape. Access accurate sanctions data, view detailed insights and background check reports, and stay up to date on any changes with our monitoring capabilities.

World-Check sanctions-screening data contains comprehensive coverage of all known sanction bodies and includes more than 300+ sanction programmes.

Access accurate data, quality data - our specialist research unit monitors major sanction lists 24/7, 365 days of the year. On an annual basis our sanctions processes undergo ISAE 3000 design-effectiveness certification.
Significantly reduce your sanctions-screening workload, as our records are deduplicated - each subject has a unique record. All information by the sanction issuers are available on that record, together with official sources for verification, reducing the number of records needing to be screened.
Filter keyworded records easily and choose which records to screen against to match your own risk-based approach, policies, procedures and regulations for sanction compliance.
Tackle the challenges of complying with narrative, implicit and sectoral sanctions when there is no finite sanctions list to follow. We have applied significant further qualitative research to uncover those entities and individuals who fall within the scope of these sanctions.

To fully understand your exposure to indirect sanctions you need to go one step further and uncover in-depth ownership structures of entities and/or the source of wealth of certain individuals.

Get detailed insights and background checks on any business or entity with a range of due diligence reports.
Designed to provide deep intelligence and tailored to your use-case and situation - whether you require quick, affordable data-driven reports that deliver essential information on more entities, or detailed integrity and advanced background on known high-risk customers, vendors or business interests.
We leverage our unrivalled propriety and partner data, and global network of human expertise to provide deep insight that can help you pinpoint risk and provide protection from potential regulatory, reputational and financial damage.

Our Managed Services team can help you to stay on top of any profile changes and avoid backlogs with ongoing monitoring.

Reduce your compliance burden and maximise existing resources by outsourcing ongoing monitoring to our Managed Screening Service team.

Our team can help you screen large batches of your third parties and customers against Refinitiv World-Check database covering Sanctions, Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs), State-Owned/State-Controlled Entities, Law Enforcement and Regulatory Enforcement lists. If we have identified newly arisen issues, our team will then escalate this to you.
This cost-effective solution will allow you to reduce false positives and identify changes in risk levels in the face of the rapidly changing sanctions’ landscape.

Benefits

Why we are trusted worldwide

Discover the benefits of working with us for your sanctions compliance.

Reliable intelligence

We follow the most stringent guidelines for research methodology and inclusion criteria – applying rigorous quality control.

Up-to-date information

With research centers on all five continents, we provide around-the-clock monitoring of sanction lists, regulatory and enforcement lists, as well as thousands of reliable media sources, so you have accurate and up-to-date information.

Targeted screening

Hundreds of specific keywords for our data help you filter and drill down for focused screening and reduce false positives.

On-demand webinar

Navigating the global sanctions landscape in 2022

Sanctions continue to dominate geopolitics and global business dynamics. As the complex and dynamic sanctions landscape is continuing to evolve, Financial Services companies need to have an effective sanctions screening programme to remain compliant.

View on demand