Where there is exchange of money, there are high possibilities involved in interacting with illicit actors seeking ways to convert their dirty money into white money. Amidst such dynamic landscape of business processes, compliance teams are faced with a consistent challenge of complying with a great volume of AML watchlist screening regulations.
Therefore, monitoring clients against various watchlists is essential to keep your business operational and avoid any sort of legal or reputational damage.
Converging the focus on screening for politically exposed persons (PEPs), and other high risk individuals proves to be highly beneficial as it enables the businesses in taking more informed decisions rather than simply debanking or derisking the targeted subject.
This blog will be a complete talk about how essential role watchlist screening plays in dealing with financial crimes and what are the implications on business relationships.
Navigating the Ins and Outs of AML Watchlist Screening
Watchlists are not mere the lists with names of the high risk entities, rather these are the official records of wanted individuals who are to be kept in notice as the crime is yet to be proved against.
Several regulatory bodies offer their watchlists pertaining to a particular region or jurisdiction. Failure to comply can result in reputational damage or hefty penalties for businesses in relationships with such individuals.
However, one thing remains clear that watchlist screening is not as simple as it may seem. It’s much more than just screening against an official repository, rather the challenge of dealing with aliases, false positives remain a global pain point in AML watchlist screening.
The Collaborative Effort Behind Watchlist Compilation
Global watchlist compilation isn’t a straightforward task. It requires multiple sources to be fetched from and compiled onto a single platform. In most cases, following bodies are taken into consideration
- European Union Consolidated Sanctions List
- World Bank Debarred Entities List
- Interpol Most Wanted List
- Financial Action Task Force (FATF) list of gray listed and black listed countries.
- United Nations Security Council Sanctions List
How Can AML Watchlist Screening Help You?
Businesses in the current age cannot expect to proceed without having an AML solution deployed in their workflow. This essential part of abiding with AML requirements not only helps in staying safe but builds a relationship of trust among clients and businesses.
Here’s How to Optimize the AML Screening for Your Business
By optimizing AML screening one can expect less burnout, less exhaustion and better resource allocation that can help enhance the overall efficiency of the AML landscape.
Here are some of the ways you can master watchlist screening.
- Use Of Latest Technology
The use of modern technology, specifically the integration of artificial intelligence and machine learning in the screening process can increase overall efficiency with regards to both accuracy and performance. These new technologies have the power to analyze large databases and provide you with accurate and desired outcomes.
- Stay Updated with Emerging Updates
Just like regulatory authorities, criminals also find ways to breach AML protocols. Therefore, regularly updating your screening strategies is crucial. This ensures that the screening process remains effective and aligned with the latest changes and is less susceptible to getting fooled.
- Ensuring Your Business Adheres to Global Standards
The rules and regulations of each sanctioned body can vary from one to another. Therefore, to ensure that your business is compliant with all regulatory bodies, you need to regulate your business not only according to local standards but also international compliance standards to comply with global watchlist screening requirements.
- Implement Unique defense Strategy
There is no single solution for all problems, and that is also the case with money laundering, which cannot be addressed with a single tool. So make sure you implement layers of strategies, including screening and monitoring against different checklists. This approach can provide more defense against crimes.
Automated Watchlist screening is the way forward
It’s quite challenging for organizations to manually screen the several watchlists. Most of the time, these manual check systems end with lots of errors and sometimes at the cost of compromised customers. To avoid such hurdles, businesses need reliable, time-saving tools that keep them ahead of the bad actors. AML Watcher is one such tool.
Is there any Reliable AML screening tool?
One way of screening is to visit each sanctioning body’s website one by one and use different filters for watchlist screening. But that takes too much time. So you would definitely love to have a single platform that, with just one click, gives you outcomes that comply with AML compliance. AML watchlist screening services offer you screening tools compliant with all regulatory bodies.
