Watchlist Screening & Entity Resolution Software

What is Watchlist Screening?

A central pillar of any anti-money laundering (AML) software is ongoing list screening— of curated watchlists, official sanctions registers, investigative journalism databases and internal blacklists. Common client requirements include the ability to:

• Harmonise all such sources
• Optimise result sensitivity and specificity
• Pick out identities common to multiple lists

smartKYC’s advanced watchlist screening solution includes:

1. Appropriate variant generation
   Transliterated, homophonic and orthographic versions of names are among 16 variant types than can be added to any search.
2. Cultural and script-sensitive name handling
   Includes Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and other non-Latin scripts. Name origin detection is also used by smartKYC to sensitise name handling based on the origin of a name.
3. Adaptable name matching rules
   From full to partial to fuzzy matching of names and dates of birth, clients can define the rules governing name matching.
4. Identity matching
   smartKYC uses all identifying attributes presented at search such as date of birth, nationality and company affiliation to disambiguate an identity rather than use name alone.
5. Configurable scoring rules
   Weightings of identity attributes can be configured according to client policy or preference.
6. Legal entities as well as natural persons
   Legal entities get their own name handling logic.
7. Triangulation across multiple sources to resolve an identity
   Common identities can be formed based on disparate attributes found in multiple sources. An aggregated, enriched profile is created as a result.
8. Using enriched profiles to improve media search accuracy
   Newly discovered identifying information from watchlist sources can be used to make media hits more precise.
9. List management
   Ability to manage multiple internal lists; upload, merge, delete, extract and control access.
10. Batch processing
    Run large volumes overnight or on demand.
11. Monitor
    Continuously monitor watchlist sources and combine with adverse media monitoring in the same application.

Watchlist Screening Case Study

smartKYC was engaged by a leading Asian bank to assist with completing a substantial KYC remediation task. The bank had implemented a new name screening system and was asked by the Monetary Authority of Singapore to run its complete book of business through this new software to check for hits from their primary watchlist source. 

This exercise generated 15.2 million hits for review. Humans initially spent 15 months manually inspecting the first 1.2 million hits which would have equated to 120,000 man hours to complete the task. This is where smartKYC was asked to help. We used our automated KYC solution to complete the remediation task in just 53 hours, all whilst maintaining high levels of accuracy in the final results.

Managing Internal Watchlist Data

Financial crime teams have long struggled with seamlessly integrating their internal watchlist data into their due diligence work. Data is captured from different sources, such as financial intelligence units, and is often held in disparate databases or unmanageable spreadsheets. And while banks wish to screen these lists as a single, unified source, they still expect them to be appropriately segregated. 

smartKYC’s module, smartLISTS, is a better way for financial crime teams to manage and screen against their internal watchlist data. This list screening software allows firms to manage and update their own existing internal watchlists and develop new proprietary watchlists, which can in turn be used to match against future and existing clients for KYC screening. 

Discover smartKYC’s Watchlist Screening Solution

smartKYC is the world’s most advanced enterprise solution for due diligence automation. Comprising a diverse team of experts in the field of open source intelligence technology, smartKYC marries technical excellence with pioneering market expertise.

If you’re interested in learning more about smartKYC’s watchlist screening software and how it can transform the efficiency and effectiveness of your KYC operations, book your free demo today.