Client screening

A maximum of three names (either individuals or entities) per calendar week from a single firm or member may be checked free of charge using our service.

The client screening service is limited to three searches per calendar week at the request of our suppliers as it is only intended as an ad-hoc service. The deadline for the week's submissions is 5pm Friday. Any requests received by us after this point will count towards your allocation for the next week.

Please note if you submit before the deadline on Friday we might not send you a report until Monday, but you would still be entitled to three client screening requests for the new week.

We will supply a list, in PDF format, of closely matching names that are on the Dow Jones Risk & Compliance database (see our example search results). In the event that there are no matches, we will supply a search report showing this for your records. If there is a precise and unique match with the details that you have asked us to search for, we will supply a full report as part of the results that we send to you. Otherwise, we ask that you identify any matches and request a full report from us (see example report).

All the documents supplied will include confirmation of the time and date that the search was run.

The Dow Jones Risk & Compliance database holds the names of individuals, companies and other entities (e.g. ships) that are contained in over 700 current international official sanctions, risk or exclusion lists, covering 80 jurisdictions. This includes watchlists issued by law enforcement agencies, warning lists published by regulatory authorities and trade restriction lists.

Examples of lists included are the HM Treasury sanctions list, the sanctions list from the Office of Foreign Assets Control and the lists produced by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.

The database also includes the details of Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs) and their relatives or close associates.

Profiles are reviewed and updated when a new item of information – such as a significant stage of criminal proceedings - is identified by the updating team.

The information contained in the profiles is derived from news articles published by various media providers around the world. It is not an exhaustive source of information about the individual or any related allegations of criminal activity, but reflects references in those articles to alleged criminal misconduct. The database may not reflect all or subsequent developments in a particular criminal matter; users are advised to conduct a further inquiry for any information that post-dates the date on which the search result was last modified.

No. This service checks the names of individuals or organisations against industry, law and regulatory watchlists but it does not verify client identities. However, any negative data or risks identified (e.g. politically exposed persons) through this service can help you in compiling a picture of your client.

For more information on client identity verification, please refer to the guidance on Electronic client identification resources, the CCAB money laundering guidance and the additional guidance on money laundering from ICAEW.

No. There is no publicly available list or database of UK criminal convictions so it is not possible to run a criminal record check.

If you were intending to use this service to run a criminal record check for a potential employee you may be able to use the UK government's Disclosure and Barring Service.

No. The service we are providing today comes from a new supplier and the watch lists searched by this product are different to the product we used previously.

The search type Precise looks for exact and very close matches to the search criteria. Very close matches are those where the first name and surname are inverted or the first name searched is in the middle name field on a profile.

For example:

Search	Match	%
David Cameron	David Cameron	100%
David Cameron	David William Donald Cameron	100%
David Cameron	Bruce David Cameron	96%

Precise does not look for linguistic matches.

Precise does not find a match if there are typos in the searched name or if characters are transposed between the name searched and the name on the profiles.

For example searching Sani Abatcha would not find the record for Sani Abacha, searching David Caberon/David Camreon would not find the profile for David Cameron, David William Donald Cameron or Bruce David Cameron.

Precise is useful for focusing on the closest match to a name.

The search type Near goes beyond Precise to look for linguistic matches such as phonetic and transcription variations and long and short forms of names. It can match common numbers with words and symbols in entity names. It can also match typos in words of a certain length.

For example:

Variation	Search	Match	%
Phonetic	Elizabeth Whyte	Elisabeth Whyte	96%
Transcription	Boris Jelzin	Boris Eltsin	94%
Transcription	Abdülaziz Buteflika	Abdelaziz Bouteflika	90%
Transcription	Mijaíl Sergéyevich Gorbachov	Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev	92%
Transcription	Lyu Youqing	Lu Youqing	94%
Transcription	Somsak Kietsuranon	Somsak Kiatsuranont	94%
Short/long form	Joe Allman	Joseph Allman	90%
Entity abbreviation	Aberdeen Management Ltd.	Aberdeen Management Limited	98%
Common number/symbols	1st Transport Management OJSC	First Transport Management OJSC	99%
Typo*	David Caberon	David Cameron	77%

^{*Typos are only tolerated on names over five characters long if another name element is a 100% match. Otherwise typos are only tolerated on Near on name elements over seven characters long.}

On the Search tab, if one element of a person’s name is entered Near will look for that name in the Surname field.

Please note: owing to the characteristics of different scripts, not all of the above variations apply to all scripts.

Near is recommended to take advantage of the linguistic search capability.

Near finds close and feasible matches.