AML screening of a transaction counterparty is the process of checking the individuals and legal entities involved in a transaction against sanctions lists, watchlists, and public and proprietary databases.

These checks are performed in real time in order to identify and flag high-risk or illicit transactions, associated with PEPs, sanctioned entities, or adverse media before they are completed. They help reduce your company’s financial crime risk exposure, and ensure legal and regulatory compliance.

How AML screening of transaction counterparties works

Transaction counterparty AML screening utilizes the existing features of Sumsub's AML Screening and Monitoring Solution and applies to individuals (transaction beneficiaries) and legal entities (financial service providers).

Sumsub’s AI-powered checks include the detection of suspicious words within payment details and name and counterparty institution screening.

These checks, combined with our Case Management System (CMS), enhance your compliance team’s operational efficiency and help reduce the risks associated with the manual processing of cases.

Sumsub performs the following checks:

Get started

If you want to test the system behavior during the transaction counterparty AML screening, install the AML Watchlist bundle from the Rules Library and create a transaction using John Snow as a counterparty.

This will create a test AML case pre-populated with data. Once you are satisfied with the testing, it’s time to configure the process.

📘

Note

You must install the AML rules in order to initiate counterparty transaction screening.

To set up the counterparty transaction AML screening process:

1. Open the AML Screening settings and choose a provider that you want to use for AML screening. If the provider is locked, enter your credentials, as described in the dedicated articles for Comply Advantage and World-Check One.
2. Select a search configuration. You can search by warning types or by providing a search profile identifier:
   • When searching by warning types, specify the categories of PEPs for which you want to screen your applicants and add the associated types of adverse media.
   • When searching by custom search profiles, enter a profile identifier. To search for profiles from your Comply Advantage key, make sure to provide the key, as described in this article.
3. Configure name-matching criteria and your desired fuzzy-matching levels.
4. Install the rules triggering the AML checks and related actions from the Rules Library. The minimum set of rules includes the following, depending on your business’ activities to ensure that your transactions are checked and the risky ones (containing potential or true positive matches) are put on hold or rejected automatically:
   • Travel Rule: Counterparty AML Screening
   • Travel Rule: Counterparty AML Screening - Hits to review
   • Check counterparty for AML (sanctions, peps, etc.)
   • Counterparty with potential AML hit
5. Enable Ongoing AML Monitoring to stay informed of any changes in sanctions, watchlists, and financial crime-related adverse media concerning your applicants. If you skip this step, your transaction counterparty will be screened only once, and you may not identify future sanctions and AML risks.
6. Configure the auto-screening for AML to monitor applicant profiles for one year after the initial check has been completed.
7. Configure the system to automatically assign applicants to your compliance officers for a manual review and monitor applicants for an unlimited period of time if needed by selecting the respective checkbox.
8. Save your changes.

📘

Note

The AML screening process may require installing rules with paid features that involve services rendered at an additional price.

Review screening results

Once your set-up is complete, you can manage any alerts and output through the Case Management System under Transactions and AML Cases.

In case potential and true positive matches are found during AML screening, the transaction will be treated as set by your rules. Normally, the applicant will be put on hold and sent for manual processing to your compliance officers. The screening results are interpreted as described in this article.

You can sort the assigned cases by the match source using AND and OR operators, and use the information from these for reporting purposes.

To process your cases, follow the instructions provided in this article.