OFAC sanctions search that answers in one verdict line, matches every license condition to your facts, and is confirmed by the BSA/OFAC Officer
One verdict line, the license's conditions matched to your facts, every source dated.
See one case, screen by screen ↓OFAC sanctions search is how bank staff find out whether a party, a country or a payment is sanctioned or licensed under OFAC's rules. In OFAC Sanctions Search, a branch, payments or partner program employee asks in plain words and can attach the payment. Agents screen every party, find the program and the licenses in force today, and answer with one verdict line, prohibited, authorized under a general license, or not covered, with each license condition matched to a fact and its cited passage. The BSA/OFAC Officer confirms what the bank's policy names.
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An OFAC sanctions search at a community bank rarely starts with a list. It starts at a branch desk, in payments operations or in the fintech partner program: a customer wants to pay a supplier, send money to a relative, or wire $3,200 for gloves, gauze and blood pressure cuffs for a children's hospital in Iran. The answer sits in 31 CFR chapter V, OFAC's general licenses and FAQs, the executive orders that start, change and end programs, and the bank's own sanctions policy, which can be stricter than any of them. At a bank with 41 branches and one BSA/OFAC Officer, the question goes by email or phone, and the Officer reads the regulations again while the customer waits at the desk or the payment sits held.
Liability is strict, and a general license holds only when every one of its conditions holds. The Iran license for medicine and medical devices has eight, spread across several paragraphs and two other sections: payment terms, and a note that a donation of funds to the hospital needs a specific license. One fact is often missing, so the email goes back to the branch. And the answer, once given, is not linked to the passage or the date it relied on: when a party is added to the SDN List or a program ends, as the Syria program did on July 1, 2025, nobody knows which past answers are now wrong. OFAC now expects those records to be kept ten years.
Estimated split of working minutes on one license question with a payment attached, answered by email today and with the solution; time spent waiting in an inbox is not counted.
Seven agents read the payment, screen every party, find the license in force today, match its conditions to the facts and ask back for what is missing; the BSA/OFAC Officer confirms.
Tessaly Community Bank, Wednesday, October 21, 2026, Millbrook branch. Dr. Navid Rostami, a customer since 2014, wants to wire $3,200.00 for medical supplies for Mehr-Afarin Children's Hospital in Shiraz, Iran. Marisol Ortega has drafted wire WD-2026-10418 to the hospital's supplier in Dubai, against pro forma invoice PI-2210. Here is what happens next, screen by screen, in the working solution.
Marisol types the question in plain words and attaches WD-2026-10418 from her branch's open payments; account numbers are masked to the last four. Under the question box she can see how fresh the sources are: regulations, licenses and FAQs checked at 6:00 AM, the SDN List updated at 8:02 AM, Sanctions Policy v7.2.
“Dr. Navid Rostami wants to wire $3,200 for medical supplies for a children's hospital in Shiraz, Iran. Can we send it?”
The agents read the draft wire, screen 4 parties against the lists of 8:02 AM with no match, and find the Iran program as it stands at 10:14 AM. The answer opens with one line, the general license it rests on, 31 CFR 560.530(a)(3), and its dates: in force since October 22, 2012, last amended December 23, 2016, no expiry date. Below it, eight conditions, seven met, each with its fact and where the fact came from: the invoice, the wire's fields, the screening service.
“Authorized under a general license, if one more fact holds.” Confidence 0.93, threshold 0.90.
Marisol clicks 31 CFR 560.530(a)(3)(i). The passage opens word for word as it reads today, checked at 10:14 AM, with the date it took effect (77 FR 64666), its last amendment (81 FR 94257) and its expiry. The panel shows that 38 answers this year rest on this passage, and that the watch agent re-checks all of them if it ever changes.
The invoice lists the items but does not say whether any is on OFAC's List of Medical Devices Requiring Specific Authorization, so the agents ask Marisol, with three plain choices. She answers that only the three items on the invoice are being shipped. The checklist completes: eight of eight conditions met, confidence 0.97. Had she answered yes, the verdict would have changed to “Not covered: a specific license is needed”.
“Is any of the three items on OFAC's List of Medical Devices Requiring Specific Authorization?”
Iran is named in Tessaly Sanctions Policy § 6.3, so the answer must be confirmed before the wire moves. Marisol sends it to Joanna Pryce, the BSA/OFAC Officer; she cannot confirm it herself. It joins Joanna's queue on a 30-minute clock, due 10:46 AM, because the customer is at the branch. Held payments get 2 hours, other questions 1 business day, and the 10% sample is due Friday.
Joanna sees each step: the question, the agents' answer, the question they asked back and Marisol's reply. She reads the eight conditions with their facts and passages and confirms with reason code CF-1, confirmed as answered. She could have confirmed with an edit, added a condition the branch must check, returned it with a reason, or answered it herself.
“Show me the condition, the fact and the passage. Then I will confirm it.”
The hand-off agent attaches the confirmation to WD-2026-10418 in the payments hub. The payment screen shows the fields the answer used, from the beneficiary's address in Dubai to the remittance line naming the invoice and the hospital. Marisol sends the wire, the OFAC screening service screens it again with no match, and the watch agent tracks the ship-by date of October 18, 2027.
The screening service held wire WR-2026-55203, $18,640.00 from Lindgren Home Furnishings LLC to Yalta Timber Works in Sevastopol, on the city name. Theo asked whether any license lets it through. The answer: prohibited under Executive Order 13685, because the invoice is for 12 oak dining sets made in the Crimea region of Ukraine and no general license covers it. No party matched a list, so the wire is rejected, not blocked.
“Prohibited. No general license covers it, so the wire is rejected and reported to OFAC within 10 business days.”
Theo proposed the rejection at 9:52 AM, Joanna confirmed it, and Malcolm made the second check, never the person who confirmed. The hand-off agent opened rejected-transaction report RT-2026-038, due November 4, 2026. The customer notice is drafted to Policy § 7.2: it says the wire could not be processed and that the funds remain in the account, and names no screening result, review or report.
At 8:02 AM the SDN List added 23 entries and removed 4. The watch agent re-screened 1,184 parties and found that a party in Q-2026-3644, a $6,200 port handling payment answered earlier as “No prohibition found”, had been added. That answer was reopened for Joanna and handed to sanctions alert review. When the Syria program ended on July 1, 2025, it reopened six answers the same way.
The same OFAC sanctions search, seen by the five people who carry it: what their day looked like, and what it looks like now.
Seven agents read the payment, screen every party, find the license in force today, match its conditions to the facts and ask back for what is missing; the BSA/OFAC Officer confirms.
Reads the question and any attached payment and invoice; pulls out parties, countries, goods, amounts, purpose and dates, each with the field or line it came from, and masks account numbers.
Screens every party against the SDN and non-SDN lists through the OFAC screening service, and again on every list update.
Finds the program, the prohibition, the general licenses and the FAQs in force today, with their dates.
Turns a license into its conditions, matches each to a fact and where the fact came from, and asks back when a fact is missing.
Applies the bank's sanctions policy, which may be stricter than the license, and decides who must confirm and on which clock.
Watches every source, list and license date; re-checks past answers that rest on what changed, reopens the ones whose verdict would change, and warns 60 days before a license expires.
Attaches a confirmed answer to the payment, or opens an ownership review, a sanctions alert review or an OFAC report with the facts filled in.
Confirms every answer that touches a comprehensively sanctioned jurisdiction, a license or a list match. The agents propose; a named person decides.
The assistant answers from the same sources and records, points to the passage or record each answer rests on, and takes you to the screen.
Which licenses we rely on expire in the next 60 days?
Two. Halvorsen Medical Supply's specific license ending 18215-1 expires November 14, 2026, with 2 shipments open worth $88,800.00; the customer filed for renewal on September 30. Carrow Grain Exporters' license ending 20977-2 expires December 31, 2026. The general licenses we rely on have no expiry date.
What changed for Syria, and which answers did it reopen?
The Syria sanctions program ended on July 1, 2025 under Executive Order 14312, and the Syrian Sanctions Regulations were removed on August 26, 2025. The watch agent reopened 6 answers that said “prohibited”; all 6 were replaced the same day. Persons designated under other programs remain blocked.
Show every answer that relied on the Iran medical general license
38 answers this year relied on 31 CFR 560.530(a)(3); every one was confirmed by the BSA/OFAC Officer, as Policy § 6.3 requires. Two were returned first with OV-4, a missing fact.
Is Dr. Rostami's wire ready to send?
Not yet. Seven of the eight conditions of the general license are met; the agents are waiting for Marisol Ortega to say whether any item is on OFAC's list, and then Joanna Pryce confirms.
13 screens from the working solution, on its sample data. Pick one to see it large.
What the bank decides for itself is a setting: the compliance systems administrator proposes a change, the BSA/OFAC Officer approves it, and it goes on the audit trail.
| Setting | Default | Choose from |
|---|---|---|
| Answer without the Officer at or above | 0.90 confidence | 0.80 to 0.98; below it, the Officer answers on a one-business-day clock |
| A delayed source feed | Answers that need it go to the BSA/OFAC Officer | Always on |
| Re-check past answers when a passage changes | On, for answers from the last 10 years | On · Off |
| Warn before a license expires | 60 days | 30 · 60 · 90 days |
| Check regulations, licenses and FAQs | 6:00 AM daily, and on demand | 6:00 AM daily · Every 4 hours |
| Keep questions, answers and confirmations | 10 years, with the passages cited and the agent versions in use | 10 years · 12 years |
| Remind the confirmer | 10 minutes before the clock runs out | 10 · 15 minutes before |
| Partner program customers | Shown by program number outside the partner team | On · Off |
Every figure is labelled: a target the solution is built to, an estimate, a typical published result, or a proven one.
“demo” = seen in the working solution, on its sample data · “target” = the design goal, measured in the live solution · “estimated” = our estimate of where the working minutes on one license question go · “typical” = published rules: OFAC's final rule of March 21, 2025 extending sanctions record-keeping to ten years (31 CFR 501.601) and the 10-business-day report of a rejected transaction (31 CFR 501.604). Other rules named: 31 CFR 560.530, 560.532, 560.516 and 560.550 (Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations), Executive Order 13685 and Executive Order 14312. Tessaly Community Bank, its customers, the companies, payments, licenses and the people named on this page are fictional: characters and sample data in the working solution.
OFAC sanctions search is how bank staff find out whether a party, a country or a payment is sanctioned or licensed under OFAC's rules. In OFAC Sanctions Search, a branch, payments or partner program employee asks in plain words and can attach the payment. Agents screen every party, find the program and the licenses in force today, and answer with one verdict line, prohibited, authorized under a general license, or not covered, with each license condition matched to a fact and its cited passage. The BSA/OFAC Officer confirms what the bank's policy names.
The conditions agent splits the general license into its conditions and matches each to a fact from the question, the payment or the invoice, saying where the fact came from. In the sample case, the Iran general license for medicine and medical devices has eight conditions; seven were met from the draft wire and the invoice. The answer shows the license's dates: in force since October 22, 2012, last amended December 23, 2016, no expiry date.
The agents ask for it instead of guessing; a missing fact is never treated as met. The question comes with plain choices, the answer stays open until the person who spoke to the customer replies, and the verdict updates in place. If an item had been on OFAC's list of devices that need a specific license, the verdict would have changed to “Not covered: a specific license is needed”.
Yes. The licenses screen lists every general license the bank's answers rely on and every specific license its customers hold, with the date each took effect, its expiry and the answers that rested on it. The watch agent warns 60 days before a license expires; in the sample bank, a customer's specific license expiring November 14, 2026 with 2 shipments open was flagged 24 days out.
The agents do not decide ownership questions. When an owner of a party may be blocked, the hand-off agent opens an ownership review in case management with the facts filled in, and the payment stays held. In the sample, a $9,800.00 freight payment to Yerevan was handed to ownership review this way.
Questions, answers and confirmations are kept ten years by default, with the passages cited and the agent versions in use, in line with OFAC's ten-year record-keeping period for sanctions-related records (31 CFR 501.601). BSA records of funds transfers are kept at least five years, and a legal hold overrides retention.
Yes. The agents never release, reject or block a payment, clear a possible list match, or close a reopened answer. The person who asks never confirms; the BSA/OFAC Officer confirms with a reason code, a rejection needs the Deputy's second check, and below 0.90 confidence the Officer answers the question.
The Agentic Solution Engine builds and deploys OFAC Sanctions Search from your requirements and documents: your sanctions policy, your roles and clocks, and the systems it connects to. It goes live once every quality gate has passed, including a golden set of past questions with confirmed answers.
Every hit cleared identifier by identifier; true matches with the officer within the hour.
1-min demoPayment Sanctions ScreeningHeld payments released or stopped in minutes, every decision with its reason and time.
1-min demoOFAC ReportingEvery OFAC report filed in 10 business days, every blocked dollar tied to the ledger.
1-min demoWe'll run OFAC Sanctions Search on a sample of your own past questions and held payments.