Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Screening
IDWise screens your applicants against global sanctions, PEP, warnings, fitness & probity and adverse media lists as part of the onboarding journey. It can then keep watching them after onboarding. Screening runs automatically on the identity data extracted from the applicant's document, so there is nothing extra for the applicant to fill in.
Use AML screening to:
- Meet KYC/AML obligations for sanctions, PEP, and adverse media checks.
- Stop sanctioned or high-risk individuals before they are onboarded.
- Be alerted when an existing customer is added to a list later on.
How AML screening works
- Configure a search profile. Choose which lists to screen against and how strictly names are matched. See AML Search Profiles & Matching.
- Add the AML block to your flow. In the Flow Builder, add the AML block and select the search profile to use.
- Applicant completes the journey. IDWise takes the applicant's name, date of birth, and sex from their ID document and runs the search.
- Review the result. If any match is found, the Datasets – AML/PEP/Sanctions rule fails, and the journey is sent for review (Refer). Your team reviews the matches in the IDWise Portal and approves or rejects the applicant.
- Monitor ongoing (optional). Subscribe applicants to Ongoing Monitoring so you're notified if their status changes after onboarding.
Screening lists
| Category | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Sanctions | Individuals and entities on official sanctions lists from thousands of sources, including OFAC, UN, UK HMT, EU and Australia DFAT, in 14 languages. |
| Warnings & Regulatory Enforcement | Individuals and entities involved in international law-breaking, under investigation in specific jurisdictions, or found guilty of regulatory breaches. |
| Fitness & Probity | Individuals and entities disqualified or restricted from certain roles or activities because of regulatory or conduct violations. |
| Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs) | People in prominent public positions, their relatives and close associates, grouped into four risk levels (see below). |
| Adverse Media | Negative news gathered with machine learning from tens of millions of articles: international, regional and local news sites, government websites and court judgments. |
You can choose exactly which lists are used, per flow, with AML Search Profiles.
PEP risk levels
| Level | Risk | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | High | Ruling royal families; heads of state or government; members of national government and parliament; top officials in state agencies, the military, the judiciary, central banks and political parties |
| 2 | Medium | Members of regional government; senior officials of international organisations; ambassadors, consuls and high commissioners |
| 3 | Medium | Senior management of state-owned businesses; heads of regional agencies and institutions |
| 4 | Low | Local mayors and council members; senior executives of local government bodies; local judges |
Name matching
Names are rarely spelled the same way everywhere, especially across alphabets and transliterations. IDWise supports two matching approaches:
- Fuzzy match: tolerates spelling and phonetic variations. You control how broad it is with a similarity level.
- Exact match: no spelling variations, but word order can differ (e.g. John Smith matches Smith John).
You can also fine-tune matching with rules that reduce false positives or find more matches. The full details are in AML Search Profiles & Matching.
AML results
AML results are available in three places:
- IDWise Portal: on the journey page, with each match's name, datasets, countries, dates of birth, aliases, and match score.
- Journey result API: in the
amlobject and theno_aml_recordsrule of Get Journey Result. - Webhooks: see Webhooks overview.
| Rule result | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Passed | No matches were found in the selected lists. |
| Failed | One or more possible matches were found and need review. |
A match is not a confirmed hitA failed AML rule means the applicant's details are similar to a list entry. Compare the match details (date of birth, nationality, aliases) with the applicant's document before deciding.
Ongoing Monitoring (OGM)
Ongoing Monitoring keeps watching your customers after onboarding and alerts you if they appear on a list, or if an existing record changes.
You can subscribe applicants in two ways:
- Automatic subscription: every screened applicant is subscribed.
- Selective subscription: you choose which applicants to subscribe.
Monitoring updates are sent to you through webhooks. For help enabling OGM, contact [email protected].
How often the lists are updated
| Category | Update frequency |
|---|---|
| Sanctions | Within hours of official publication |
| Warnings and Fitness & Probity | Daily to monthly, depending on the source |
| PEPs | Daily, with extra updates after elections and changes in government |
| Adverse Media | New articles are usually available within 24–48 hours of publication |
Next steps
Updated 14 days ago