PEP and sanctions screening
Overview. PEP and sanctions screening is a check you enable on your account. Once it is enabled, every time an identity verification passes, IdentityCheck automatically screens the verified person against global politically-exposed-person (PEP) and sanctions watchlists. Results appear on the verification as a clear "No matches found" or a list of possible matches you can review, and you can add them to the report PDF and have them written back to your CRM. It helps you meet the screening part of your customer-due-diligence obligation without leaving the platform.
Does it screen against sanctions lists, and when?
When screening is enabled on your account, IdentityCheck screens the people you verify against global PEP and sanctions watchlists automatically. The moment an identity verification passes, the verified person's name is searched against those lists, and any possible matches are recorded against that verification. There is no separate button to press for each check: once the feature is switched on for your account, a positive verification is what starts the screening.
What lists does it check?
Screening starts from the client's full legal name, taken from the verified identity, and searches it against a large, continuously maintained set of sources:
- Sanctions: more than 70 international and domestic sanction lists, updated every 30 minutes. Sources include the major development banks (African, Inter-American and Asian), the EBRD, and the EU Commission and Council, among others.
- PEP: more than 3,000 PEP data sources, added to daily. These cover roles such as heads of state, government ministers, members of parliament, senior judiciary, high-ranking military, courts of auditors, central-bank boards, political-party governing bodies, ambassadors, heads of federal administration, state-owned-enterprise boards, and senior officials of inter-governmental organisations such as the UN, NATO and ASEAN.
The full source list is proprietary. If you need to confirm coverage for a particular jurisdiction, sample details are available on request from team@stackgo.io.
PEP/Sanctions screening on this path covers individuals, searching by the person's name. It is designed to sit right on top of the identity check, so that once you have confirmed who someone is, you immediately know whether they appear on a sanctions or PEP list. Because it runs off the verification you already did, nothing needs to be re-keyed and there is no second workflow to remember.
For firms meeting Australia's Tranche 2 obligations, this is a core part of customer due diligence: identifying and verifying your client, and screening them for sanctions and political exposure, as one connected step inside the tools you already use.
What is a possible match?
A possible match is a record on a PEP or sanctions list that resembles your client's name closely enough that it is worth a look. It is important to read it as exactly that: a prompt to review, not a confirmation that your client is the listed person.
Screening searches by name with fuzzy matching, which deliberately errs on the side of surfacing anything similar so that a genuine match is not missed because of a spelling variation or a middle name. The trade-off is that some possible matches will turn out, on review, not to be your client at all. That is normal and expected. Your job is to open the possible match, compare the details the platform shows, and decide.
Each possible match is presented as a card with colour-coded badges that tell you at a glance what kind of listing it is, for example whether it relates to a sanction or to political exposure, and the card expands to full detail: identity, birth, nationality, roles and affiliations, relationships, sanction details and source links. That detail is what lets you make a considered judgement about whether the record really is your client, and to record your reasoning.
How do I read the results?
Screening results live in three places, so they are wherever you need them.
- On screen. Each verification has PEP/Sanctions and Adverse Media tabs. Each tab shows either a clear "No matches found" or a list of possible-match cards you can expand for the full detail described above. This is where you do your review.
- In the report PDF. When you download a verification's report, you can tick to include the PEP/Sanctions results, producing a single audit-ready document that carries the identity check and the screening together.
- Written back to your CRM. If the verification started from a connected CRM, the outcome is written back automatically. That includes a note on the client record, and for HubSpot, structured PEP Check Status and Sanctions Check Status properties on the contact along with a KYC check date. This keeps your system of record up to date without anyone copying results across.
The consistent principle is that you verify once and the result follows the client everywhere it needs to be: on the verification, in your evidence PDF, and back in the practice or CRM system your team works in day to day.
Frequently asked
Does IdentityCheck screen against sanctions lists? It can, once screening is enabled on your account. With it switched on, every passed identity verification is automatically screened against global politically-exposed-person (PEP) and sanctions watchlists, so a positive verification starts the screening for you. It is a feature you enable rather than something that runs on every account by default.
What is a possible match? A possible match is a record on a PEP or sanctions list that resembles your client's name closely enough to be worth reviewing. It is a prompt to look, not a confirmation. You open the match card, compare the details, and decide whether it is genuinely your client.
How do I read the results? Screening results appear on PEP/Sanctions and Adverse Media tabs on the verification, as either "No matches found" or a list of possible-match cards you can expand for full detail. You can also include them in the report PDF, and they write back to your CRM.
Does it screen businesses or just individuals? PEP/Sanctions screening on this path covers individuals, searched by name. It is designed to run on the person you have just verified as part of that verification.