Watchlist Report

About Watchlist Report

100+ global sanctions and warning lists

The Watchlist Report screens an individual across 100+ global sanctions and warning lists. The Watchlist Report is the most commonly used Report type and is often required as part of a fully built-out KYC/AML process.

Highly configurable, continuous monitoring

Persona's Watchlist Report stands out from other providers:

• We search against one of the largest databases, containing 100+ lists and growing.
• We offer highly configurable search parameters to help you reduce false positives and manual effort from your operations teams.
  • High false positive rates are a common problem amongst providers of watchlist screens.
• We allow you to continuously monitor an individual against a set of lists at a cadence you choose.

Configuration options

Configuration options let you specify which lists to search against, and what constitutes a match against a list.

List configurations

You can configure the lists used in your Watchlist Report in multiple ways:

• List types: Specify whether to include sanction and warning lists in your search.
  • For example, you can specify that you want to search against all sanction lists, but not against any warning lists.
• Exact lists: Alternatively, you can pick and choose exactly which lists you want like to search against.
  • For example, you can specify that you want to search against the Ireland Central Bank Revocation Notices list, the Switzerland Federal Gaming Board Blocked list, and the India National Housing Bank Penalties list.

Name match configurations

You can specify what constitutes a match between the name of an individual and the name on a list. Options include:

• Exact match: You can specify that you want a match only when an individual's name is exactly the same as what's on a list.
• Equivalent names: You can specify that, in addition to exact matches, you also want to match on equivalent names.
  • Equivalent names include:
    • Hypocorisms (e.g. James <> Jim <> Jimmy)
    • Homophones (e.g. Kearns <> Cairns <> Kerns)
    • Abbreviations (e.g. Robert <> Rob)
    • Transliteration (e.g. Mohammed <> محمد)
    • AKAs (e.g. Alphonse Gabriel Capone, Al Capone)
• Search fuzziness: You can specify that, in addition to exact and equivalent matches, you want to allow fuzziness in the match.
  • Allowing for fuzziness allows you to account for typos.
  • You can specify the level of fuzziness you want to allow (ranging from Low to High).

For more information, see Reports - Name Match Requirements.

Country configuration

You can optionally specify the country of an individual. Specifying the country can effectively reduce false positives in your list matches.

By default, in a match, at least one of the following country-related fields must have a matching value:

• Residency
• Citizenship
• Birthplace
• Nationality

You can change this default if you’d like, and choose which fields you want to match on.

Continuous monitoring

You can continuously monitor an individual on a cadence you choose.

An individual who is not a "bad actor" today might still become a "bad actor" two months down the line. Continuous monitoring ensures you're notified if this happens.

For more information, see Continuous Reports on Accounts.

Use Watchlist Report with Workflows

Many organizations who use the Watchlist Report want to mark Inquiries for review when they have an associated Watchlist match. You can build a Workflow to do this automatically.

Specifically, you can choose from the following Trigger events to trigger a Workflow:

• watchlist.matched
• watchlist.ready

FAQs

How does the Watchlist report work?

You configure search parameters, including the lists to search in, the name of an individual, and the criteria for a name match. You can optionally include a country code and/or a year of birth for the individual. Based on the criteria, Persona searches for matching individuals in the set of lists specified.

What lists can Persona search against?

Persona can search across 100+ global sanction & warning lists. If you have questions about Persona’s Reports products, please reach out to your CSM or via the Persona Dashboard.

What other reports work well with the Watchlist Report?

We often recommend using the Watchlist Report with the Adverse Media Report.

How often are lists updated?

We check our Watchlist sanctions sources for updates as frequently as every 10 minutes, and at least once per day.

Disclaimer

Persona is not a consumer reporting agency and the services (and the data provided as part of its services) do not constitute a ‘consumer report’ for the purposes of the Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). The data and reports we provide to you may not be used, in whole or in part, to: make any consumer debt collection decision, establish a consumer’s eligibility for credit, insurance, employment, government benefits, or housing, or for any other purpose authorized under the FCRA. If you use any of any of our services, you agree not to use them, or the data, for any purpose authorized under the FCRA or in relation to taking an adverse action relating to a consumer application.