Revolutionizing

Payments Screening Solutions

Advanced, accurate, and efficient screening for diverse payment types, ensuring AML compliance while reducing operational costs by over 80%

Fincom's advanced payment screening solutions

Ensure OFAC sanctions compliance for all payment types, significantly lower alert rates, and streamline your investigative processes

WIRES

Comprehensive screening of all relevant payment message fields including names, entities, addresses, countries, free text, and more, delivering superior accuracy and efficiency in wire sanction screening

ACH

Streamline alert investigations with our user-friendly Case Manager, providing contextual insights to ensure compliance and reduce risk by effectively screening every ACH transaction

Instant Payments

Delivering precise results in under 200 milliseconds, 24/7 year-round, ensuring the rapid processing speeds and availability essential for instant payments

SWIFT

Unmatched accuracy and efficiency in name-matching and cross-border transaction screening, handling various transliterations, spelling variations, and unstructured names across 44 languages.

Ensuring Compliance:
Key Requirements for Payments Sanction Screening

Regulated US Financial Institutions (FIs) must adhere to several critical regulatory requirements to ensure compliance with Payments AML (Anti-Money Laundering) and OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control) sanction screening. These regulations are designed to prevent financial crimes and ensure that banks and credit unions do not engage in transactions with sanctioned entities.

What Payment Types Need to Be Screened

According to the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and OFAC, FIs are required to perform OFAC checks and screen all payment types to ensure compliance with sanctions and regulatory requirements.
OFAC and AML Sanction Screening specifically required for these payment types:

Wire Transfers: This includes both domestic and cross-border wire transfers, processed through systems like Fedwire, CHIPS, and SWIFT.
Automated Clearing House (ACH) Transactions: This includes both domestic and international electronic payments, such as direct deposits and direct credit transfers.
Instant Payments: This includes RTP and FedNow transactions that allow for the immediate transfer of funds.

Risk-Based Approach

Banks and credit unions are required to develop and implement a risk-based sanctions compliance program. This involves conducting a thorough risk assessment, establishing internal controls, and ensuring management commitment. Regular testing, auditing, and training are also essential components to maintain an effective OFAC compliance program.

Transaction Screening Systems

Financial Institutions (FIs) must implement robust transaction screening systems to ensure compliance with sanctions. These OFAC search, AML Sanction Screening systems must be capable of identifying and blocking transactions involving sanctioned entities and individuals in real-time, preventing prohibited transfers and ensuring adherence to U.S. sanctions laws. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) expects regulated FIs to screen comprehensive transaction information to meet sanctions and AML regulations. To achieve this, OFAC encourages FIs to adopt modern and innovative solutions that enhance their transaction OFAC screening capabilities.

Blocking and Rejecting Transactions

Banks must block transactions of specified entities and individuals and prohibit unlicensed trade and financial transactions with them. This requirement ensures that banks do not inadvertently facilitate transactions that violate Anti Money Laundering (AML) and OFAC regulations. Institutions must report to OFAC and file Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) if their OFAC check detect any suspicious transactions that might involve money laundering, terrorist financing, or other illegal activities.

Regular Updates and Audits

To ensure ongoing OFAC compliance, banks must routinely update and audit their sanctions compliance programs. This includes keeping up with changes in sanction lists and regulatory requirements and making necessary adjustments to internal controls and procedures.

Fincom empowers banks and credit unions and other FIs to perform AML sanction screening on all payment types to detect and prevent transactions involving sanctioned entities or individuals, ensuring that banks comply with US AML and OFAC sanctions regulations by blocking or rejecting transactions in real-time as required by law.

FAQ

What payment types need to be screened by US banks?

According to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), US banks are required to screen ALL payment types to ensure OFAC compliance with sanctions and regulatory requirements.

What information should be scanned in Payment Screening?

Fincom’s AML sanction screening solution employs advanced and specialized screening methodologies to analyze a diverse range of data types and fields, including individual names, entities, addresses, countries, free text, vessels/aircrafts and more.

How easy is the integration of AML Sanction Screening with Payment systems?

Fincom offers open APIs that allows seamless integration with existing payment and core banking systems, supporting OFAC checks in real-time for Wire transfers, ACH, SWIFT, RTP, and FedNow.

How frequently OFAC updates their sanction lists?

OFAC may update lists several times a week. Fincom system automatically updates sanction lists daily, ensuring that the latest regulatory requirements are reflected in the payments sanction screening process, reducing the risk of outdated information.

How to address high alert rates in OFAC AML sanction screening?

Current OFAC AML screening systems produce high alert rate, typically 30-50%, causing significant work overload. Fincom’s advanced technology reduces the alert rate to 5% without compromising compliance.

How important is explainability traceability in AML sanction screening?

OFAC and other regulators emphasize the importance of explainability and traceability. Fincom provides detailed logs of every action taken during the Payment screening process, explainable decisions and transparent reporting for auditing and inspection. These features help financial institutions meet regulatory requirements and maintain compliance.