Sanctions, PEP and adverse media screening
Sanctions screening checks whether a customer or counterparty is on national or international sanctions lists. TruvaLI runs this check alongside PEP records, adverse media and internal blacklists in a single screening workflow.
One screening, four datasets
In practice, four separate questions are asked, and in most institutions, they are answered on separate screens. TruvaLI evaluates all four in the same workflow:
- Sanctions lists: OFAC, United Nations, European Union, HM Treasury, Interpol and local sources are updated daily.
- PEP records: Politically exposed persons, their family members and close associates, both globally and locally.
- Adverse media: Beyond standard news feeds, tabloid, celebrity and influencer content is also screened, as these areas are frequently seen in money laundering typologies.
- Internal lists: Your own blacklists and whitelists are evaluated in the same engine.
Phonetic matching
The biggest challenge in name screening is different spellings of the same name. Muhammed, Mohammad and Muhammet appear as three separate records in most systems. TruvaLI uses phonetic matching to tolerate spelling variations, while also accounting for transliteration differences, name-surname ordering and abbreviations.
A match is not a binary answer but a scored result. The institution sets the threshold: a high threshold means fewer false alerts but a higher risk of missing matches, a balance that depends on the institution's risk appetite.
Continuous screening
A customer may be clean at onboarding but get added to a list six months later. TruvaLI rescreens your entire customer database overnight. When a new match is found, an alert is generated on the day the list is updated, without waiting for the next periodic review.
Without waiting for official lists
Official sanctions lists can take months to update after an event occurs. TruvaLI's open-source intelligence capability detects when a person or company is mentioned in a negative context in the news, flagging their profile as high risk before they appear on official lists.
Reducing false positives
A well-known problem with screening systems is that they generate too many matches to investigate. TruvaLI addresses this in three ways:
- Match scores and thresholds can be adjusted individually by segment.
- Records previously closed as a "false positive" are remembered, so the same person does not reappear in every screening.
- AI-powered pre-analysis presents matches to the compliance officer along with the reasoning.
Benefits for your institution
- Customer, counterparty and payment screening in a single engine.
- Lists are updated daily, and the customer database is rescreened every night.
- Every match is recorded with its source list and match score.
- Screening runs on your own infrastructure, ensuring your customer list never leaves your environment.
Common questions
- What is the difference between PEP and sanctions screening?
- Being on a sanctions list is a legal restriction, making it illegal to transact with that person. A PEP status is not a prohibition but a risk indicator. You are free to work with a politically exposed person, but it requires enhanced due diligence.
- Why is adverse media screening also necessary?
- Serious allegations against a person can appear in the press long before they are reflected on official lists. Adverse media screening closes this gap and enables the early detection expected by a risk-based approach.
- How do you reduce false positives?
- The match threshold can be adjusted by segment, records previously closed as false positives are remembered, and matches are presented to the compliance officer along with a pre-analysis. The goal is not to reduce the number of matches, but to highlight those that require investigation.
- How often are the lists updated?
- Global sanctions lists are retrieved daily. The entire customer database is rescreened every night, so any new match appears as an alert the very next day.