Experian, the global business solutions company, has secured exclusive rights to online sanctions and enforcement data provided by Complinet, to enhance its anti-money laundering solutions.
As a result, the most up-to-date sanctions data, including data from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which is used to verify that individuals do not appear on any listing of persons identified as dangerous, or are a threat to national security, is now available online via Experian's Internet-based authentication and anti-money laundering solutions including e-identitycheck and Verifier for Money Laundering (VML).
As part of the online service, customer details can now be submitted online and immediately screened against over 50,000 records of special interest, including OFAC, the United Nations, the Bank of England file and other sources of importance such as the UK's Financial Services Authority (FSA), Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Politically Exposed Persons lists.
The data is amended on a daily basis from official, restricted lists issued by a variety of regulatory, law enforcement and governmental bodies. If a customer's name appears on official sanctions and enforcement lists, the customer's details are highlighted, enabling further online investigations.
This information was previously available as part of Experian's offline 'Know Your Customer' service, that additionally provides the ability to screen existing customer records and continue monitoring these records against the up-to-date sanctions data.
Jim Lound, Product Director for Experian's Trust Services unit, said: "By providing easy access to this valuable information online, we are helping to minimise, what is, for many organisations, a major operational headache and provide a quick and easy service for organisations to meet their obligations to monitor sanctions information. This, coupled with the risk-based approach to identity verification, such as using Experian's electronic solutions for identify authentication, ensures compliance with the Money Laundering Verification Guidelines and the FSA's requirements associated with Know Your Customer."
Anthony Carey, Head of Business Solutions at Complinet, said: "We are delighted to have teamed up with Experian to provide a genuine solution to a daily practical problem. This is a convenient and unique service that for the first time allows customers to complete a comprehensive online check in one place at one time."
The service can offer an integrated credit, ID and sanctions screening solution and meets the requirements for diligent account opening and continual customer list audits.
Experian's online authentication and anti-money laundering solutions, including e-identitycheck, VML and Know Your Customer, use an extensive range public and private data sources including the Electoral Roll, postal address files, BT telephone file and credit bureau information containing more than 440 million records to verify identifies – enabling organisations to combat money laundering and identity fraud.