AML Screening Check

AML screening for KYC and KYB, including sanctions, watchlists, PEP, adverse media, continuous monitoring, and real-time alerts.

AML Screening Overview

ComplyCube’s AML Screening Check helps you meet AML and KYC compliance requirements through real-time customer and business screening.

Use it for sanctions screening, watchlist screening, PEP (Politically Exposed Person) screening, adverse media screening, and ongoing AML monitoring.

Powered by a proprietary graph network, entity resolution system, multilingual matching engine, and global partner network, AML Screening covers 3,000+ international, regional, and local lists.

It can also surface relatives, associates, and business relations, whether they are linked to the matched subject or the listed person connected to that subject.

AML Screening supports real-time screening, continuous monitoring, instant alerts, and KYB screening for both individuals and businesses.

Choose between two AML Screening variants: Standard and Extensive.

Learn about the AML Screening Checks API.

Common use cases

Use AML screening to reduce compliance risk across key customer journeys:

• KYC and KYB onboarding: Screen individuals, businesses, directors, shareholders, and beneficial owners against sanctions, watchlists, and PEP lists during account opening.
• Transaction screening: Screen parties involved in payments and transfers to detect sanctions, watchlist, and financial crime exposure.
• CDD and EDD: Apply risk-based screening for higher-risk customers, products, jurisdictions, and business relationships.
• Ongoing monitoring: Rescreen customers continuously and trigger alerts when sanctions, watchlist, PEP, or adverse media status changes.
• Periodic reviews: Refresh screening results as part of scheduled customer due diligence and risk review workflows.

How AML screening works

AML Screening Check combines a proprietary graph network with a multilingual matching engine to identify potential sanctions, PEP, watchlist, enforcement, and adverse media matches.

Data sources

Screening data comes from ComplyCube’s own data, regulatory publications, and leading global data providers.

This includes more than 3,000 data points across sanctions lists, PEP records, watchlists, adverse media, enforcement datasets, and regulatory sources from government authorities, international organizations, trusted commercial partners, and ComplyCube’s continuously maintained data network.

Records are continuously standardized, enriched, and maintained to support consistent AML screening across regions, jurisdictions, and languages.

Matched records will also return comprehensive source-backed data, images, and notes to support alert review and investigation.

Sample view of a potential match (full result not displayed)

Graph network and entity resolution

ComplyCube’s screening data is prepared in advance through a proprietary graph network that continuously structures and resolves entity data across global datasets.

Before any screening check runs, this process helps to:

• Remove duplicate records across multiple sources.
• Link aliases and alternative identities.
• Normalize inconsistent formatting and naming structures.
• Connect relatives, associates, business relations, and ownership links.
• Consolidate fragmented records into unified entity profiles.

Sample association graph showing how related entities connect to a subject across screening datasets

This means screening runs against cleaner, already-resolved entity data, which reduces duplicate alerts and improves the quality of potential match results.

Multilingual matching

The matching engine compares names and entity attributes across languages, scripts, and regional naming conventions.

It accounts for:

• Phonetic similarity
• Transliterations between scripts
• Linguistic and regional spelling variations
• Cultural and regional naming structures
• Non-Latin scripts
• Patronymics and compound names
• Honorifics and titles

This supports screening across Latin, Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic, Japanese, Korean, Thai, and other major writing systems.

Combining graph-based entity resolution with multilingual matching helps improve match consistency while eliminating duplicate noise and unnecessary false positives.

This allows compliance teams to review cleaner and more relevant screening results across global datasets.

Match explainability

Screening results include structured match metadata to help compliance teams understand why a potential match was returned and how closely it aligns with the screened entity.

Common match signals include:

• Name-based: Exact, partial, alias, transliteration, former name, and alternative spelling matches.
• Attribute-based: Date of birth, nationality, country, address, passport, or company registration matches.

This supports alert review, investigations, and regulatory reporting.

Sample explanation for a match score on hover

Screening configuration

AML Screening is configurable. Adjust it to your policy, risk appetite, and review capacity.

You can configure:

• Scope coverage: Select which datasets and list types to screen, such as sanctions, PEP, adverse media, and other official lists.
• Continuous monitoring: Enable ongoing monitoring and real-time alerts when new potential matches are identified.
• Match thresholds: Define score bands that suppress weak matches, auto-reject lower-confidence matches, and route stronger matches for review.
• Search mode: Choose between Precise and Fuzzy matching, depending on how strictly you want names and attributes to match.
• Exclusion rules: Exclude inactive entities, deceased persons, low-quality aliases, and matches missing key attributes such as date of birth, gender, nationality, or incorporation country.

More granular AML screening controls and settings are available for Enterprise customers.

Continuous monitoring

AML Screening continuously monitors individuals and businesses against updated sanctions, politically exposed person (PEP), watchlist, and adverse media data. Rather than relying on one-time screening, ongoing monitoring automatically identifies new matches and changes to existing records throughout the customer lifecycle.

When monitoring is enabled, ComplyCube screens your clients continuously throughout the day and generates alerts whenever a potential new match or material risk change is detected. Notifications can be delivered in real time through webhooks or email, allowing your compliance team to review changes and take appropriate action quickly.

Continuous monitoring is ideal for organizations that must meet ongoing AML obligations, maintain up-to-date customer risk assessments, and respond promptly to evolving financial crime risks.

To make monitoring more effective over time, teams can validate potential matches and feed those decisions back into future alert handling.

Match validation

Potential matches can be validated as confirmed or rejected.

This improves ongoing monitoring. Teams can distinguish true exposure changes from previously rejected false positives.

It also strengthens auditability and gives you a stronger monitoring posture over time.

Validation of a match

Service variants

We offer two levels of AML Screening, Standard and Extensive, designed to support different risk profiles and compliance requirements.

Comparison at a glance

Feature	Standard AML Screening	Extensive AML Screening
Sanctions coverage	Sanctions lists Other official lists War crime Sanctions control	Sanctions lists Other official lists War crime Sanctions control Child sexual exploitation Terror Other exclusion lists
PEP coverage	Level 1	Levels 1-4
Adverse media coverage	Not included	Environment & production Social & labor Competitive & financial Regulatory
Other lists	Not included	Organized crime Financial crime Tax crime corruption Trafficking Associated entity

PEP levels explained

ComplyCube's PEP levels are outlined below.

Level	PEP Coverage
1	Heads and Deputies Heads of State or National Government National Government Ministers Members of the National Legislature
2	Heads and Deputy Heads of Regional Government Senior Civil Servants-National Government Senior Civil Servants-Regional Government Senior Members of the Armed Forces Senior Members of the Police Services Senior Members of the Secret Services Senior Members of the Judiciary Embassy and Consular Staff Regional Government Ministers Religious Leaders
3	State Corporation Executives State Agency Officials Political Party Officials
4	International Organization Officials City Mayors Political Pressure and Labor Group Officials Local Public Officials International Sporting Organization Officials Other

Sample result

The example below shows a representative AML Screening Check result for sanctions, watchlist, PEP, and adverse media screening.

Use it to see how potential matches, screening categories, outcomes, and supporting match context may appear in an AML screening report.

This example is illustrative. Exact fields, values, and layout may vary by workflow, configuration, and result.

Check duration

An AML Screening Check takes under 1 second to complete.

Frequently asked questions

What information is needed for an AML screening check?

You can run AML screening with a name alone, but match quality improves when you add more identifying data.

For individuals, use details like date of birth, nationality, and country. For businesses, use registered name, registration number, and incorporation country.

Can AML screening be used for both KYC and KYB?

Yes.

AML Screening supports both individual screening and business screening.

You can screen customers, companies, directors, shareholders, and beneficial owners in the same compliance flow.

How does AML screening reduce false positives?

AML Screening reduces false positives through entity resolution, multilingual matching, and configurable screening controls.

You can tune match thresholds, choose Precise or Fuzzy search, and exclude weak matches missing key attributes.

What happens after a potential sanctions or PEP match is found?

Each potential match includes match metadata, source-backed details, and supporting context for review.

Compliance teams can investigate the alert, then mark it as confirmed or rejected to improve future monitoring outcomes.

Can I combine AML screening with custom lists and workflows?

Yes.

You can extend screening with Custom Lists, automate decision flows in Workflows, and add downstream scoring with AML Risk Scoring.

This helps you move from screening results to consistent KYC and KYB decisioning.

How does continuous monitoring work?

Continuous monitoring keeps screened individuals and businesses under active review after the initial AML check.

Once enabled, ComplyCube actively monitors the client against sanctions, PEP, watchlist, and adverse media updates, then notifies you when something changes.

How are continuous monitoring alerts delivered?

Alerts are delivered in real-time through webhooks or email.

This lets you route changes directly into your case management, review queues, or internal notification workflows.

What changes trigger a continuous monitoring alert?

Alerts can be triggered when a new potential match appears or when an existing matched record changes.

This includes updated sanctions, watchlist, PEP, and adverse media exposure that affects the monitored client.

Related checks

Combine AML screening with other KYC and fraud checks, such as:

• Document Check for ID document verification.
• Identity Check for biometric liveness verification.
• Multi-Bureau Check for identity and address verification.
• Device Intelligence for device-level fraud signals (VPN, emulator, root/jailbreak).

Related topics

Use these to configure screening coverage, run it at scale, and manage outcomes:

• Custom Lists to extend screening with your own internal lists.
• Bulk Processing to run screening across many customers.
• AML Risk Scoring to add risk indicators to your AML decisions.
• Workflows to orchestrate screening inside an onboarding journey.
• Policies to apply consistent decision rules across journeys.