Best Sanctions Screening Software: 7 Vendors Compared

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 summarizes seven PEP and sanctions screening software vendors, listing their key strengths and features.

Top Sanctions Screening Software Companies

1. ComplyAdvantage

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 coming in 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 a large number of 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 aircrafts.
• Audit logs – Comprehensive audit logging keeping 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

As per Crunchbase, Quantifind provides “AI solutions for anti-money laundering and fraud detection”. 

The top Quantifind features for sanctions screening include (1): 

• Name science-driven entity resolution – Get substantially fewer false positives with AI-powered name-matching accuracy.
• Search in real-time – Instead of relying on manually curated lists or storage of sensitive data.
• Pushed alerts on new sanctions – Based on comprehensive coverage of global watchlists and sanctions lists that are routinely updated.
• Advanced investigation applications – Improve productivity by helping analysts work in familiar environments.

Quantifind’s customers include Financial Systems Polaris, Oracle FCCM, and Varo.

3. Quantexa

Crunchbase describes Quantexa as a “decision intelligence platform for the banking, insurance and government sectors.”

Top Quantexa features include (2): 

• Intelligence-Led Investigations – Automate first-line (L1) investigations and augment second line (L2), third-line (L3), and FIU investigations with an integrated investigation platform. 
• Dynamic, real-time connections – Identify threats like money laundering and terrorist financing rapidly by surfacing connections.
• Continuous risk monitoring – Detect risks in real-time with end-to-end monitoring and alert management for investigations.
• Data governance – Manage and ingest data in a way that increases transparency and control across FinCrime use cases.
• Transparent statistical models – Make it easier to explain to stakeholders how data is joined together and used for decision-making.

According to Quantexa (3), its customers include ABN Amro, Accenture, and Bronte Capital.

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”. 

Its top features for sanctions screening include (3): 

• ISAE3000 International Certification – Achieved based on stringent processes for internal quality assurance along with annual reviews by independent auditors.
• Continuous updates – All sanctions lists, official lists, and exclusion lists are monitored constantly to capture updates from international governments. Some lists are updated multiple times a day.
• Consolidated watchlists – Prevent duplicated alerts with aggregated lists that reduce the number of hits generated to keep search results relevant.
• Regulator-friendly transparency – Work with a team of content strategists who maintain an open dialogue with you to conduct ongoing analysis of the regulatory environment.

Dow Jones Risk and Compliance does not list its customers publicly. 

5. Moody’s Analytics

Crunchbase describes Moody’s Analytics as providing “financial intelligence and analytical tools”. 

Moody’s Analytics’ top features include (5): 

• Data management – Use master data management to create the best starting point for your sanctions screening program.
• Sanctions list screening – Ensure fast, accurate screening of all relevant global sanctions and watchlists.
• Comprehensive exposure – Conduct deeper investigative research into sanctions-related risk as part of enhanced due diligence.
• Ownership & control sanctions – Understand ownership and control of legal entities by identifying those sanctioned by the 50 percent OFAC rule and the EU & UK’s “control” rules.
• Noteworthy associations – Uncover hidden networks of ownership and control through family members or close connections. 
• Proactive monitoring – Update sanctions coverage daily and get alerts when there is a change. 

Moody’s Analytics (6) customers include Raiffeisen Bank and Erste Bank der oesterreichischen Sparkassen AG.

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”. 

LexisNexis’ Bridger Insight XG top benefits for watchlist, sanction, and PEP screening include (7) (8):

• Faster screening and account opening – Reduce onboarding times and screen transactions with fewer manual reviews.
• Customer lifecycle management – Orchestrate relationships across a single, configurable, and accessible platform for financial crime lifecycle management.
• A single risk view – Combine global risk data spanning global sanctions, politically exposed persons, adverse media, and state-owned companies.

LexisNexis’ customers include Zopa, Advantage Finance Limited, and Cashhome. 

7. LSEG Data & Analytics (Previously Refinitiv) 

According to Crunchbase, the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) is a “provider of financial markets data and infrastructure”. 

LSEG’s top features include (9) (10):

• ISAE 3000 design-effectiveness certification – A specialist research unit monitors major sanction lists 24/7, 365 days a year. 
• Deduplicated records – All information by sanction issuers is available on a single record with official sources for verification.
• Configurable search – Filter keyworded records easily and choose which records to screen based on your own risk-based approach, policies, procedures, and regulations.
• Narrative, implicit, and sectoral sanctions compliance – Benefit from additional qualitative research to uncover those entities and individuals within the scope of such sanctions.

Refinitiv’s customers include Union Bank and Sansan.

Best Sanctions Screening Software Vendors: Side-by-Side Comparison

All information sourced from publicly available websites, and correct as of November 2023. If you’d like to request a correction, please e-mail [email protected] and we’d be happy to review this with you. 

Next Steps: Explore Sanctions & Watchlists Screening from ComplyAdvantage

Discover why businesses around the world choose ComplyAdvantage for adverse media screening, and book a demo to see the solution for yourself. 

Source material

1 https://www.quantifind.com/use-case-watchlist-screening/

2 https://www.quantexa.com/solutions/aml 

3 https://www.quantexa.com/featured-customers/

4 https://www.dowjones.com/professional/risk/sanctions-compliance/

5 https://www.moodys.com/web/en/us/kyc/solutions/sanctions.html

6 https://www.moodys.com/web/en/us/kyc.html#what-our-customers-say

7 https://risk.lexisnexis.co.uk/products/bridger-insight-xg

8 https://www.refinitiv.com/en/risk-and-compliance/financial-crime-risk-management/sanctions-screening

9 https://www.refinitiv.com/en/about-us/customer-stories#t-sansan

10 https://www.quantexa.com/information-security/

11 https://sustainability.moodys.io/privacy

12 https://www.lexisnexisip.com/resources/lexisnexis-patentsight-receives-iso-27001-certification-for-international-information-security-standard/

13 https://my.refinitiv.com/content/mytr/en/policies/information-security.html

14 https://www.dowjones.com/professional/risk/sanctions-compliance/

15 https://www.moodysanalytics.com/solutions-overview/data/sanctions-watchlists-data

16 https://risk.lexisnexis.com/global/en/financial-services/financial-crime-compliance/watchlist-screening

17 https://www.lseg.com/en/post-trade/regulatory-reporting#benefits