Brussels, 9 September 2014 - Swift announces that its Sanctions Screening service has surpassed the 200-customer milestone just two years after its introduction as the first solution in Swift's financial crime compliance services portfolio. Sanctions Screening is a shared service that screens financial transactions against selected lists, providing small and medium-sized institutions with a reliable, cost-effective means of testing their compliance with sanctions regulations.
Sanctions Screening features a centrally-hosted screening engine from an industry-leading vendor, FircoSoft, and a list management tool. Swift manages the service and provides ongoing sanctions list updates. Since its launch in 2012, the Sanctions Screening service has been adopted by more than 230 customers in 88 countries.
"Sanctions Screening demonstrates the strong demand for Swift's financial crime compliance solutions that help customers increase the effectiveness and efficiency of their compliance activities while reducing cost and risk," says Nicolas Stuckens, Head of Sanctions Compliance Services, at Swift. "Its success has paved the way for additional compliance services that leverage Swift's core strength - community-driven solutions built on global standards and operational excellence."
"We chose Sanctions Screening because it is effective, simple to implement and easy to use," says, Kheireddine Mermioui, Head of IT and Swift, Arab Maghreb Bank for Investment and Trade (BAMIC ALGER). "Sanctions Screening is very effective, user friendly, works well with our other systems, and is supported by Swift's excellent reputation for security, reliability and customer service."
Jorge Osvaldo López García, Deputy Compliance Director, Grupo Financiero Banorte, adds, "Swift's Sanctions Screening is an easy to implement, user friendly and cost effective service that gives our anti-money laundering programme added assurance. Swift provides the tool that enables us to mitigate potential risks in our day-to-day business."
Banks using the Sanctions Screening service can send their transactions to a screening engine, which filters the messages in real time and checks against the banks' selected sanctions lists. The service covers the majority of the messages used in cross-border financial transactions and is expected to support all types of financial messages, including SEPA payments, in 2015.
Join Swift at Sibos 2014 Boston
Sanctions Screening will be one of the many topics in focus at the Compliance Forum at Sibos 2014 in Boston. Swift will host auditorium sessions on Sanctions Screening and Sanctions Testing, as well as Compliance Analytics and the KYC Registry. Delegates can meet Swift's financial crime compliance services team at stand E80.
The Compliance Forum, on September 30 - October 1, is a two-day event that reflects on the profound impact of financial crime requirements on financial institutions and debates ways for industry to cooperate and mitigate compliance-related risk and costs. Panelists will discuss regulatory trends, the relevance of utilities, and how standards can help banks address financial crime compliance.
About Swift's financial crime compliance services portfolio
Swift's Compliance Services unit manages a growing portfolio of financial crime compliance services in the areas of sanctions, Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML). Developed in collaboration with the financial community, the portfolio includes Sanctions Screening, an off-the-shelf transaction screening solution; and Sanctions Testing, which helps banks maximise the effectiveness and efficiency of their sanctions compliance. It also includes Compliance Analytics, a business intelligence tool that helps banks address financial crime risk by leveraging their Swift traffic data; and the KYC Registry, a centralised utility for the collection and distribution of standard information required by banks as part of their due diligence processes.
For more information, visit the Compliance Services on swift.com.
About Swift
Swift is a member-owned cooperative that provides the communications platform, products and services to connect more than 10,500 financial institutions and corporations in 215 countries and territories. Swift enables its users to exchange automated, standardised financial information securely and reliably, thereby lowering costs, reducing operational risk and eliminating operational inefficiencies. Swift also brings the financial community together to work collaboratively to shape market practice, define standards and debate issues of mutual interest.
For more information, please refer to our website http://www.swift.com/ or contact:
Swift
Press Office
Tel: +32 2 655 3377
pressoffice@swift.com
