AML Transaction Monitoring – Watchlist Screening Features
Reduce financial crime risk exposure and ensure legal and regulatory compliance.
Watchlist screening rules and features help to detect and prevent financial crime by identifying high-risk individuals, entities, and transactions.
These features work by screening parties involved in a transaction against global sanctions lists, PEP lists, watchlists, and public and proprietary databases. The system also analyzes payment details and financial institution information to expose suspicious behavior, hidden risks, or prohibited keywords.
By leveraging AI and real-time data, watchlist screening helps organizations flag and block potentially illicit activity before a transaction is completed. This process supports AML and sanctions compliance, reduces the risk of regulatory violations, and protects businesses from reputational and financial damage
How watchlist screening features work
Sumsub AI-powered checks include the detection of:
- ML/TF keywords, phrases, and instructions, such as mentions of drugs within the payment reference details, and any identifiable names/companies stated in the transaction payment reference that have no relation to the originator or beneficiary.
- Suspicious transactions in accordance with AI’s assessment of the transaction.
Watchlist screening features combined with our Case Management System (CMS) enhance your compliance team's operational efficiency, enabling you to run your AML investigations and KYC reviews in one platform, from alerts to resolution.
We display all AML cases related to applicants, counterparties, counterparty institutions, and all names identified within the payment reference (if there are several names, we screen each one separately).
Find the list of these features and the rules required to enable them in the table below—each of these rules is a part of the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing rules bundle and can be found in the Rules Library.
| Rule | Description | Requirements |
|---|---|---|
| Counterparty transaction AML screening | Initiates screening of the counterparty receiving the payment against the AML watchlist (PEP, sanctions, and adverse media) according to the client's transaction monitoring settings. This is a pre-scoring rule. | This rule is a prerequisite for any counterparty AML screening checks. Pre-scoring rule |
| Counterparty AML Screening – True/Potential Match | Scores and rejects the transaction if the counterparty is a true match identified via AML watchlist screening. | Depends on the Counterparty AML Screening settings. |
| Counterparty AML Screening - Hits to Review | Scores and puts the transaction on hold if a potential match from AML counterparty screening is identified. | Depends on the Counterparty AML Screening settings. |
| Counterparty Institution - AML Name Screening | Initiates AML watchlist screening of the counterparty's financial institution—includes PEP, sanctions, and adverse media. | This rule is a prerequisite for any counterparty institution AML screening checks. Pre-scoring rule. |
| Counterparty AML Screening - False Positive | Adjusts the risk score if the applicant received no hits or the counterparty AML hits were deemed false positives. | Depends on the Counterparty AML Screening settings. |
| Payment Details Inspection – Suspicious Words Check | Checks payment reference details for suspicious words, phrases, instructions, and identifiable names (individual, company, or legal entity) that don't belong to the Remitter or Beneficiary using AI. This field could include sanctioned entities, additional bank details for layering funds, instructions for high-risk activities, abuse, and messages for help from victims. | This rule is a prerequisite for the identification of suspicious words and names required for AML screening. Additional rules are required to perform AML screening on data identified during the AI check. Scoring rules might be required depending on your requirements. We recommend installing the following rules that cover PEP, adverse media, sanctions, and crime name checks: Payment Details Inspection - PEP Name Screening Payment Details Inspection - Sanctions Name Screening Payment Details Inspection - Adverse Media Name Screening Payment Details Inspection - Terrorism Name Screening Payment Details Inspection - Criminal Name Screening |
| Payment Details Inspection - AML Name Screening | Screens names specified in the payment details against AML watchlists | This rule is a prerequisite for any payment detail AML name screening checks. In order for the check to perform, the names must be identified via this rule, as per the above. Scoring rules might be required depending on your requirements. We recommend installing the following rules that cover PEP, adverse media, sanctions, and crime name checks: Payment Details Inspection - Suspicious words check Payment Details Inspection - PEP Name Screening Payment Details Inspection - Sanctions Name Screening Payment Details Inspection - Adverse Media Name Screening Payment Details Inspection - Terrorism Name Screening Payment Details Inspection - Criminal Name Screening |
Anti-Money Laundering Rules within Travel Rule
Travel Rule implementation requires adherence to specific standards that complement general AML requirements. The following rules apply:
| Rule | Description | Requirements |
|---|---|---|
| Travel Rule: Counterparty AML Screening - True Positive Hit | A true positive hit in the AML screening was identified for the counterparty. | Depends on the Counterparty AML Screening settings. |
| Travel Rule: Counterparty AML Screening - Hits to review | Potential positive hits in the AML screening have been identified for the counterparty. Manual review by a compliance officer is needed. | Depends on the Counterparty AML Screening settings. |
Get started with AML Transaction Monitoring – Watchlist Screening Features
Below is the sequence of steps to be taken to enable AML Transaction Monitoring watchlist screening features.
Step 1: Set up AML TM Watchlist Screening
The AML screening process requires installing rules with the paid features that involve third-party services rendered at an additional price. We also offer a bring-your-own-key (BYOK) option for those who want to use one of our integrated services with their existing corporate accounts.
The integrated services that support BYOK include Comply Advantage and World-Check One.
To configure transaction counterparty AML watchlist screening, follow these steps:
- In the Dashboard, open the Rules Library page and install the rules that trigger the check. You can find these rules in the table above.
- Go to the Transactions and Travel Rule section and open the AML Screening settings page.
- Select a provider that you want to use for AML screening. If the provider is locked, enter your credentials, as described in Comply Advantage and World-Check One articles.
- Select a search configuration. You can search by the warning types or by providing a search profile identifier. Under Search configuration choose from the available warning types for simpler default screening. Alternatively, you can use a custom search profile for advanced control:
- When selecting the warning types, specify the categories of PEPs, Sanctions, Warnings and Fitness and Probity 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 ComplyAdvantage key, make sure to provide the key, as described in this article.
- Configure name-matching criteria and desired fuzzy-matching levels. Choose how strictly the system should compare counterparty names during AML screening. This setting helps balance between reducing false positives and catching name variations.
You can select one of the following matching levels:- Strict matching — Matches names that are very close but not exact. Allows limited flexibility, such as minor typos or formatting differences. Good for reducing false positives while still catching near-exact matches.
- Default matching — Applies a balanced level of matching. Allows moderate variation in spelling, common name alternates, and some formatting differences. Recommended for most users.
- Fuzzy matching — Allows for the widest range of name variations - including nicknames, transliterations, partial matches, and more. Useful when you want to capture as many potential matches as possible, including less obvious ones.
Tip
Start with Default Matching unless you have specific regulatory or risk policy requirements that demand stricter or looser screening.
- Ensure you pay attention to the AML case period of activity and configure this setting to your risk policy where required. The default expiration period is 10 days.
Step 2: Test system behavior
To test the system behavior during transaction counterparty AML screening:
- In the Dashboard, open the Rules Library page and install the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing bundle.
- Create a transaction using John Snow as a counterparty. This will create a test AML case pre-populated with the respective data.
- Save your changes.
Note
- If you have performed a search for the same counterparty within the period of activity, we will reuse the same AML case instead of making a new API call for each new transaction
- If no AML check has been performed for this counterparty or the period of activity of the case has passed - we will create a new AML case.
- You can configure this setting in the Dashboard. Open Settings in the Transactions and Travel Rule section and select AML Screening.
Step 3: Review transaction counterparty screening results
Once your setup is complete, you can monitor alerts and screening outputs in the Dashboard. For more information, see this article.
In situations where potential and true positive matches are found during AML screening, the transaction will be treated as per your rules and conditions. Normally, the transaction will be put on hold and sent for manual processing to your compliance officers depending on your specified rule actions.
You can also choose to review the associated applicant and/or counterparty transaction by configuring specific applicant actions once a rule is triggered, for example, reject, perform a manual review or change their KYC level. 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 cases for reporting purposes.
Updated 1 day ago