Integration of Dow Jones sanctions data broadens the scope of lists available to customers through SWIFT’s hosted transaction screening service
SINGAPORE / LONDON (October 12, 2015) — Dow Jones today announced that SWIFT’s Sanctions Screening service will now include Dow Jones’s Sanctions Ownership Research data. The data includes content on companies and their backers, identifying those that have been targeted by sanctions programs.
SWIFT’s Sanctions Screening service is a hosted solution to support real-time message screening against international sanctions lists. The service combines a highly sophisticated screening engine with sanctions list management. Transactions can be screened against the most commonly used sanctions lists, including those from the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control, (OFAC), the UK’s HM Treasury (HMT), the EU and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority.
Through the integration of Dow Jones’s Sanctions Ownership Research into SWIFT’s Sanction Screening service, customers will be able to screen against companies and individuals considered subject to sanction by programs including OFAC’s Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list and the Sectoral Sanctions Identification (SSI) List. Dow Jones’s exhaustive and ongoing research in this area has resulted in a data set containing more than 4,500 entities from 80 countries.
Sanctions regulations that impose asset freezes or specific transaction restrictions extend beyond the published names of individuals and entities. They specify that entities “owned and controlled” by sanctions targets are also sanctioned. EU regulations define this as firms in which there is majority ownership by someone explicitly listed in EU regulation. The U.S. regulator OFAC’s guidance has been even more restrictive by including firms in which aggregate ownership by multiple identified individuals or companies totals 50 percent. Dow Jones Risk & Compliance takes this a step further, covering all companies sanctioned by the U.S., UK or EU in which a sanctions target owns a stake of 10 percent or more.
“We are very pleased to add Dow Jones Sanctions Ownership Research data to our Sanctions Screening hosted service,” said Nicolas Stuckens, Head of Sanctions Compliance Services, SWIFT. “Sanctions Screening provides a simple, cost-effective solution for compliance with sanctions requirements. The addition of high-quality data from Dow Jones demonstrates our commitment to delivering products and services that help our customers increase the effectiveness and efficiency of their financial crime compliance programs while benefiting from standardization and mutualized cost.”
“We are proud to have our Sanctions Ownership Research complement the SWIFT Sanctions Screening service. As banks adapt to the changing sanctions landscape, it is important for them to be on top of both the literal and implied sanctioned entities. Dow Jones Sanctions Ownership Research gives SWIFT customers extra protection to ensure effective compliance,” said Joel Lange, Managing Director of Dow Jones Risk & Compliance.
More information on Dow Jones Risk & Compliance data solutions is available from the Dow Jones website.
About Dow Jones
Dow Jones is a global provider of news and business information, delivering content to consumers and organizations around the world across multiple formats, including print, digital, mobile and live events. Dow Jones has produced unrivaled quality content for more than 125 years and today has one of the world’s largest newsgathering operations with nearly 2,000 journalists in more than 75 bureaus globally. It produces leading publications and products including the flagship Wall Street Journal, America’s largest newspaper by paid circulation; Factiva, Barron’s, MarketWatch, Financial News, DJX, Dow Jones Risk & Compliance, Dow Jones Newswires, and Dow Jones VentureSource.
