The best sanctions screening software and companies in 2024

If you’ve found this article, the chances are you’re looking for:

• Politically exposed person (PEP) and sanctions screening software to improve your efficiency and accuracy.
• A quick comparison of the top available solutions.
• A clear list of features. 

This article delivers an overview of seven PEP and sanctions-screening software vendors.

Sanctions screening software: 4 features to look for

Sanctions screening software allows organizations to streamline and enhance compliance efforts while minimizing reputational damage. Here are some of the key features to watch for:

• Real-time updates: Effective sanctions screening software should provide real-time updates to swiftly reflect changes in global sanctions. With high geopolitical instability in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, sanctions lists are liable to change at short notice, meaning firms could be at risk of enabling sanctions evasion unless they can react quickly.
• Advanced entity matching: Look for software with advanced entity matching capabilities that can accurately identify variations in names, languages, and spellings. This can help minimize false negatives and positives by intelligently matching entities across diverse datasets.
• Machine learning capabilities: Incorporation of machine learning algorithms can enhance accuracy and streamline the screening process. These algorithms learn from historical data, enabling the software to prioritize and categorize information based on relevance to specific alerts – reducing manual efforts and minimizing human errors to ensure consistent and effective screening.
• Scalability and integration: Choose a sanctions screening solution that can scale with growing transaction volumes and integrate with existing tools. Scalability is essential to handle increased workloads efficiently, while integration capabilities ensure a smooth workflow with other compliance systems, case management tools, and customer relationship management (CRM) platforms. 

The best sanctions screening software companies

1. ComplyAdvantage

The G2 GridⓇ for Anti-Money Laundering helps measure financial crime risk management vendors based on customer appraisals. The G2 GridⓇ lists ComplyAdvantage as a leader in anti-money laundering.

Sanctions and Watchlists Screening from ComplyAdvantage combines rapid updates to global sanctions data with manual data quality checks by domain experts to help businesses accurately screen against sanction lists, watchlists, and PEP jurisdictions. Its five primary benefits are:

• Market-leading data – Independent reviews of our PEP coverage have consistently found our product offers coverage ahead of the competition.
• Higher alert quality – Manage alerts more effectively with our industry-leading search algorithms.
• Configurable parameters – Flexibly set risk-based alert frequencies and differentiate risk screening levels once a customer is onboarded. 
• Autonomous systems – Check all the sources that matter to you regularly, with updates every few hours.
• Shorter remediation times – Match your workflow by integrating data feeds, case management systems, and CRMs.

Top ComplyAdvantage features:

Sanctions and Watchlist Screening from ComplyAdvantage is used by many industries ranging from those offering financial services to those relying on counterparties and those enabling payments. 

The solution’s top features include:

• Case management – Provides all case context on a single screen, plus bulk decisions on onboarding/monitoring cases.
• Risk scoring – Advanced, automated risk scoring based on your risk policies. 
• Insights – Into team workload/performance, noise-generating sources, customer risk, rule performance & performance on SLAs.
• Search and monitor – Individuals, companies, organizations, vessels, or aircraft.
• Audit logs – Comprehensive audit logging keeps firms prepared for regulator scrutiny at any time.
• Account configuration – Unmatched configurability at multiple levels and fuzziness setting for each source.
• User management – Easily set and edit role-based access for users.
• And more – Self-serve data exports, whitelisting, and a lot more.

ComplyAdvantage’s Watchlists and Sanctions Screening customers include ABInBev, AJBell, Zoopla, and Plaid. 

2. Quantifind

Crunchbase says Quantifind provides “AI solutions for anti-money laundering and fraud detection.” It was founded in 2008 by two atom physicists and has offices in Silicon Valley, New York, and Washington, D.C.

3. Quantexa

Crunchbase describes Quantexa as a “decision intelligence platform for the banking, insurance, and government sectors.” Quantexa was founded in 2016 and has offices in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

4. Dow Jones Risk and Compliance

According to G2, Dow Jones Risk and Compliance is “a global provider of third-party risk management and regulatory compliance solutions.” It’s part of the wider Dow Jones group based in New York.

5. Moody’s Analytics

Crunchbase describes Moody’s Analytics as providing “financial intelligence and analytical tools.” Moody’s launched in 2008 and has offices in the Greater New York Area, East Coast, and Northeastern US.

6. LexisNexis Risk Solutions

According to Crunchbase, LexisNexis Risk Solutions “provides information to assist customers in industry and government in assessing, predicting, and managing risk.”

7. LSEG Data & Analytics (Previously Refinitiv)

According to Crunchbase, the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) is a “provider of financial markets data and infrastructure.” With headquarters in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, LSEG was founded in 2007.

How to measure success

While each organization’s sanctions screening roadmap will vary based on risk appetite and objectives, measuring effectiveness involves evaluating the alignment with best practices and choosing suitable software. Key benchmarks include:

• False positive rate: A lower false positive rate can indicate that the system is successfully distinguishing between legitimate transactions and potential matches to sanctioned entities, reducing the need for manual reviews and enhancing operational efficiency.
• Response time to changes: A successful screening program should promptly detect and incorporate updates, minimizing the risk of delayed processing and ensuring compliance.
• Onboarding time: Measure success by looking for improvements in the customer onboarding process. Some solutions have demonstrated up to an 83 percent reduction in onboarding time, achieved through the streamlined optimization of the onboarding procedures.
• Remediation time: When an alert is flagged, how quickly it can be resolved is key to improving the efficiency and efficacy of compliance analysts. This should include an intuitive way to document the decision that was taken for audit purposes. 

Next steps: Explore Sanctions & Watchlists Screening from ComplyAdvantage

Discover why businesses worldwide choose ComplyAdvantage for sanctions and watchlist screening, and book a demo to see the solution for yourself. 

All information is sourced from publicly available websites and is correct as of March 2024. If you’d like to request a correction, please e-mail [email protected] and we’d be happy to review this with you.