Is Your Watchlist Data Any Good? We have a 5 minute test
How do you know if the watchlist information that powers your sanctions, PEP and KYC screening is any good? Buying compliance software and data is extremely complicated because government watchlists are hard to find and hard to use, and most vendors are not transparent about their watchlist data enrichment process, pricing or technology.
Put between a rock and a hard place (or a regulator and a legacy vendor) many organizations simply buy the biggest name in the space, relying on the adage “no one got fired for buying IBM.” That purchasing manager may have kept their job, but buying legacy compliance solutions has not prevented hundreds of millions, and in some cases, billions of dollars in fines. We won’t name any names here, but you know who we’re talking about.
Instead, use a data-driven approach to purchasing, beginning with a clear set of goals that software and data need to accomplish. Here’s a quick 5 minute test you can give to any vendor. We created this test based on our experience as compliance technology users and purchasers in government and the private sector, as well as technology builders.
Test question: Can I get a free trial without talking to sales?
Correct answer: Yes! And only yes. If your first interaction is with sales and not with the product itself, you’re talking with a sales-driven, not a product-driven company. This means that the compliance screening solution is likely hard to understand, will be expensive and difficult to implement and may reflect a lack of confidence by the vendor in their own product. By comparison, Castellum.AI lets anyone create a free account without talking to sales.Test question: How quickly do you update your data?
Correct answer: Date is updated directly from the source multiple times per day. Castellum.AI updates data directly from the source every five minutes, and once data is ingested from the source, it is available to users within milliseconds.Test question: Do you extract IDs from unstructured data?
Correct answer: Yes and only yes! And do not accept just “yes,” make sure that the vendor shows you examples that you can test. For example, Castellum.AI turns this unstructured mess on the UK OFSI site:
4. Test question: Do you assign types to all data? This would be classifying watchlist entries as entities, individuals, vessels, crypto addresses, etc.
Correct answer: Yes and only yes! And do not accept just “yes,” make sure that the vendor shows you examples that you can test. For example, the export control lists issued by US Commerce BIS has no types, so names are not classified as individuals or entities. Castellum.AI’s sanctions screening engine has categorized all names on the BIS list according to type, helping reduce false positives and enabling accurate compliance screening filters.
5. Test question: Can I search only the last name and still get a relevant result?
Correct answer: Yes and only yes! And do not accept just “yes” make sure that the vendor shows you examples that you can test. Castellum.AI allows you to search by last name only, for example try “Usmanov” or “Melnichenko.”
6. Test question: Do you connect BICs to sanctioned entities, and if I screen BICs only, will I get a result?
Correct answer: Yes and only yes! And do not accept just “yes,” make sure that the vendor shows you examples that you can test. For example, in Castellum.AI you can search by BIC to find sanctioned banks, try: BMLTUAUK
7. Test question: Do you show flags for sanctioned vessels?
Correct answer: Yes and only yes! Castellum.AI allows users to set the “Citizenship” and “type” fields to filter searches for all vessels with an Iranian flag.
8. Test question: Does your PEP coverage include not just countries, but international organizations as well?
Correct answer: Yes and only yes! International organizations manage huge budgets and in some cases, even military forces. Civil servants often move from government into international organizations and back, so tracking who is working at NATO and the UN is as important as knowing who the local governor and mayor are. Castellum.AI has not only coverage of politicians, relatives and close associates, but also civil servants at over 50 international organizations including NATO and the United Nations.
9. Test question: Can you search in any language?
Correct answer: Yes and only yes! Its 2022. People, business and payments areglobal, and your compliance system should be too. Castellum.AI allows users to search in any language, and don’t take our word for it, try any of these entries in our system, and that of a competitor:
青松連合
سعد بن سعد محمد الكعبي or
อับดลเล๊ำะ สำเม๊ำะ
10. Test question: Do you to have “all lists”?
Correct answer: There is no such thing as “all the lists” but we have excellent, global coverage. This is one of the few times where the question is wrong. When vendors claim to have “all the lists” it means they either don’t understand their clients’ needs, or that their marketing department has decided to start writing fiction.
In our experience as both builders and buyers of compliance technology, we’ve not seen identical list coverage at any vendor, and that is totally fine. What is crucial is that a vendor provide you with coverage that aligns to your risk, which means key global lists and then lists that apply to your locality and the locations you do business with. Someone that starts their sales pitch by telling you they have a billion data points instead of asking what data points you need isn’t going to be a good partner.
About Castellum.AI
Castellum.AI automates compliance screening by providing watchlist screening solutions across an online platform, API, and bulk data.
Castellum.AI obtains global sanctions information directly from authorities issuing sanctions, and then proceeds to standardize, clean and enrich the data, extracting key information like IDs and addresses from text blobs. Castellum.AI enriches as many as fifteen separate items per entry.
The database consists of over 1,000 watchlists, covering over 200 countries and eight different categories (sanctions, export control, law enforcement most wanted, contract debarment, politically exposed persons, regulatory enforcement, delisted, and elevated risk). Castellum.AI checks for watchlist updates every five minutes directly from issuing authorities.
