Payment sanctions screening that opens every held wire, IAT and instant payment as plain fields, with the words that hit underlined, every identifier compared and cited, and one recommendation your analyst approves against a running hold clock
Held payments released or stopped in minutes, every decision with its reason and time.
See one case, screen by screen ↓Payment sanctions screening checks every wire, international ACH (IAT) entry and instant payment against OFAC's lists before it moves, and holds the payment when its words come close to a listed entry until a person decides. Payment Sanctions Screening opens each held payment as its message unfolded into plain fields, with the words that caused the hit underlined, the identifiers compared and cited, and a hold clock running since the stop. The agents recommend release, reject, block or ask for information in one line; the analyst releases, and the Sanctions Officer approves every reject and block.
AI use cases in banking: a buyer's guide to agentic AI for bank and credit union operations →
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Payment sanctions screening stops every wire, international ACH (IAT) entry and RTP or FedNow payment whose words come close to an entry on OFAC's lists. At the bank in the working solution that is about 2,100 held payments on an average weekday, out of about 9,000 wires and 1,400 IAT payments. Most of those hits are not the listed party, yet each one waits: against a client's cut-off, or against the promise of an instant payment.
To decide one, an analyst opens the payments hub, the screening service, the customer file and the list entry in four windows, finds the words that hit, often in the free-text remittance field, looks up a vessel registry or a BIC directory by hand, hunts for last month's decision, and types a rationale that is often a word or two. A true match then needs a second signature, a blocked account in the general ledger and a report to OFAC within 10 business days, drafted from scratch. Payment Sanctions Screening puts seven agents in front of that reading, and leaves the decision with the analyst and the Sanctions Officer.
Estimated split of the hands-on minutes an analyst spends on one held wire like the one on this page, by hand and with the agents. It leaves out the time the payment waits in the queue. Our arithmetic, kept modest; the hold clock measures the real times.
Seven agents read the whole payment message, check every identifier and earlier decision, and recommend in seconds; the analyst releases, the Sanctions Officer approves rejects and blocks.
Thursday, October 22, 2026, at a regional bank's payment screening desk. A grain exporter's freight wire stops because its remittance text names a ship one letter away from a listed tanker. Here is the decision, screen by screen in the working solution, and the block, the list update and the Travel Rule gaps the same team handled that day.
Ostrander Grain Export LLC in Duluth, Minnesota sends an outgoing SWIFT pacs.008 wire to Halvorsen Bulk Chartering AS in Bergen, Norway. The remittance text reads MV KESTREL DAWN, and the screening service matches it at a score of 91 to SDN entry 61207, a crude oil tanker listed as KESTREL DOWN. The payment is held, and its hold clock starts against the 45-minute clock for wires.
The message reader turns the 31 fields of the message into plain rows, each with its ISO 20022 path: amount and settlement, originator, the originator's bank, the beneficiary's bank, beneficiary, purpose and remittance text. The hit locator underlines KESTREL DAWN in red where it sits in the remittance text, and IMO 0000836 is marked as checked. Under the message, one line and one button: Release payment.
Agents recommend: Release · FP-ID · confidence 0.97 — not the listed vessel; the listed tanker is IMO 0000519.
IMO 0000836 in the payment against 0000519 on the list: differs. A dry bulk carrier built 2011 under the Norwegian flag against a crude oil tanker under the Panamanian flag, owned by the beneficiary rather than Tidemark Petroleum Shipping Ltd: differs. Only the name is close. Duluth to Rotterdam touches no sanctioned region, neither bank is listed, and the Travel Rule data is complete. Disposition memory finds three earlier releases on the same IMO, the last on October 2 already checked against the list entry's version 2.
The citation beside IMO 0000519 opens the list entry itself: SDN entry 61207, version 2, added June 2, 2025 and amended September 30, 2026 with the alias SEA LARK. The passage shows the IMO number has not changed since version 1, so the earlier releases still stand. That she viewed it goes on the record.
In Ask about this payment, the answer cites four sources: the message names MV Kestrel Dawn, IMO 0000836; the listed Kestrel Down is IMO 0000519, a crude oil tanker; the registry shows 0000836 is a bulk carrier owned by the beneficiary; and three earlier releases on the same IMO. Above it, the customer context: a customer since 2009 that sends freight wires to Norway about monthly, $300,000 to $500,000.
Release opens with reason code FP-ID, an identifier differs, and the agents' sentence as the rationale for the record, which she can edit. A release under $1,000,000 at confidence 0.90 or more needs no second person; the rule is stated before the button, and the decision is timestamped to the second and kept 10 years with the message and the evidence.
The recommendation line becomes the decision, and the hold clock stops at 03:44. The payments hub sends the wire on at 10:18:08 AM. Disposition memory now proposes good-guy rule GG-0412 for this vessel, which only the Sanctions Officer can approve.
Released by Nadia Ferrante at 10:18:06 AM · held 3 min 44 s · reason FP-ID
An incoming $86,400.00 wire from Severo Shipping Agency LLC to Brightwater Marine Supply Inc in Norfolk, Virginia stopped at 9:36 AM. The ownership agent asked the sending bank for the registry extract and had it two minutes later: Arkady Volkanov, a listed person, owns 51%, so under the 50 Percent Rule the company is blocked although it is not listed. Nadia proposed Block · BK-50 at 9:41 AM; Victor sees the ownership chain and exactly what his approval will do, and nobody approves their own proposal.
The approval moves $86,400.00 to blocked account BLK-2026-0007 in general ledger account 2410, interest-bearing, opens the case and drafts report BR-2026-0007, a report of blocked property due Thursday, November 5, 2026, with the payment message, the agents' checks, the decisions and the registry extract attached. In 2026, 27 of 27 reports went to OFAC on time, in 4.2 business days on average.
The customer and the relationship manager see only "in review".
OFAC's update of October 21, published at 4:47 PM and loaded at 5:02 PM, produced 51 hits in three groups. The 31 Crescent Harbor hits share the same entry and version, the same kind of field and nothing else, and six reach their clock in the next 10 minutes. Nadia checks a sample of five, a seafood company, a dental office and a street address among them, and releases 31 as one group; over 25, Victor co-signs.
A person's name is never released as a group: the 11 Zharkov hits are decided one by one.
Today 3,962 wires and IAT payments of $3,000 or more were checked under 31 CFR 1010.410: 3,921 complete as sent, 29 outgoing gaps filled from the bank's own records before they left, and six incoming payments waiting on the sending bank on a 2-hour clock. The request asks for the originator's address and account and never says why the payment stopped. Valdemar Commercial Bank, with 14 incomplete messages in 30 days, can be sent to the correspondent banking review.
Today opens on one lane per payment type, wires on 45 minutes, IAT on 4 hours, instant on 15 minutes, with each held payment placed at the time it stopped. 742 were held since midnight, 98 are open with 63 ready for an analyst, the median hold is 6 min 40 s, and 3 are past their clock, all in the 7:10 AM IAT batch. A payment that uses 80% of its clock escalates to her.
The audit trail lists every action by a person or an agent, to the second, with who, what, why, the evidence and the list entry version, and nothing can be edited. Victor builds the October pack for the OCC examiner, 14,862 held payments with their decisions, signed; the same pack serves internal audit or the BSA Officer, with redaction choices. Records are kept 10 years.
The same morning of held payments, seen by the four people who carry it: what their day looked like, and what it looks like now.
Seven agents read the whole payment message, check every identifier and earlier decision, and recommend in seconds; the analyst releases, the Sanctions Officer approves rejects and blocks.
Unfolds each held payment — ISO 20022 pacs.008 and pacs.009, SWIFT MT, Nacha IAT with its addenda, RTP and FedNow — into plain fields, with the path of every value.
Finds the exact words that caused the hit, the field they sit in, and the list entry and version they matched.
Compares what can be compared between the payment and the list entry: IMO numbers, BICs, registrations, dates of birth, ports, places and sanctioned regions.
Brings back earlier decisions on the same party and list entry version, loads each list update and groups like hits, and proposes a good-guy rule after three like releases.
Traces the owners of the parties in a payment and applies the 50 Percent Rule, asking the other bank for registry data when it needs to.
Checks originator and beneficiary data under 31 CFR 1010.410 and FATF Recommendation 16, fills outgoing gaps from the bank's own records and drafts requests for incoming ones.
Writes the one-line recommendation — release, reject, block or ask for information — with its reason code and confidence, and drafts the blocked and rejected reports to OFAC.
Approves every reject and block. The agents propose; a named person decides.
On the home screen and on every held payment, analysts ask in plain words. Each answer cites its sources and opens the screen to act on.
Why is it not the listed vessel?
The message names MV Kestrel Dawn, IMO 0000836. The listed vessel Kestrel Down is IMO 0000519, a crude oil tanker; the registry shows 0000836 is a bulk carrier owned by the beneficiary. There are three earlier releases on the same IMO.
What changed in the list entry?
Entry 61207 was amended on September 30, 2026 (version 2): the alias SEA LARK was added. The IMO number, 0000519, did not change, so the three earlier releases on IMO 0000836 still stand; the last one, on October 2, was already checked against version 2.
Why is the Severo payment a block?
Severo Shipping Agency LLC is 51% owned by Arkady Volkanov, a listed person. Under the 50 Percent Rule an entity owned 50% or more by blocked persons is blocked whether or not it is listed. Nadia Ferrante proposed the block at 9:41 AM; it waits on Victor Amadi.
What changed in last night's list update?
OFAC published at 4:47 PM yesterday and the update was loaded at 5:02 PM: 12 entries added, 5 amended, 1 removed. Three entries drive today's like hits: Crescent Harbor Shipping LLC (31), Zharkov (11, never grouped because it is a person's name) and Northline (9).
13 screens from the working solution, on its sample data. Pick one to see it large.
Hold clocks, confidence thresholds, co-signs and retention are settings in versions. The administrator proposes a change, and it becomes a new version only when the Head of Sanctions approves it.
| Setting | Default | Choose from |
|---|---|---|
| Hold clock for wires | 45 minutes | Fedwire and SWIFT, from the stop to the decision |
| Hold clocks for IAT and instant payments | IAT 4 hours, instant 15 minutes | Information requests 2 hours, then the payment is returned; officer decisions 2 hours from the proposal |
| Warn and escalate | Warn at 60% of the clock, escalate at 80% | Escalations go to the Wire Operations Manager |
| Ready for you | Confidence 0.95 | A release below 0.90, or over $1,000,000, needs a second analyst |
| Officer co-sign for bulk or group releases | Over 25 payments | A person's name is never released as a group |
| Good-guy rules | Proposed after 3 like releases, expire after 12 months | Approved by the Sanctions Officer; suspended when their list entry changes |
| Matching threshold | 85, read only | Owned by the screening service; the agents propose tuning with evidence and never change it |
| Records and privacy | OFAC records 10 years, BSA records 5 years minimum | Account numbers masked for sanctions staff; customer names can be masked in exports; no tipping off is always on |
Every figure is labelled: a target the solution is built to, an estimate, a typical published result, or a proven one.
Sources: 31 CFR 501.603 and 501.604 — reports of blocked property and rejected transactions to OFAC within 10 business days; annual report of blocked property as of June 30, due September 30 · 31 CFR 501.601 — records kept 10 years, from March 21, 2025 · 31 CFR 1010.410 — originator and beneficiary data on funds transfers of $3,000 or more · 31 CFR 1010.430 — BSA records kept five years · OFAC, revised guidance on entities owned by blocked persons (the 50 Percent Rule), August 13, 2014 · FATF Recommendation 16, revised June 18, 2025. "demo" = seen in the working solution, on its sample data · "target" = design goal, measured in the live solution · "typical" = published figures and rules · "estimated" = our arithmetic, kept modest. The bank, its customers, the payments, vessels, banks, BICs, IMO numbers, list entries and the people named on this page are fictional: characters and sample data in the working solution. List entries are written in the shape of OFAC's lists.
Payment sanctions screening checks every wire, international ACH (IAT) entry and instant payment against OFAC's lists before it moves, and holds the payment when its words come close to a listed entry until a person decides. Payment Sanctions Screening opens each held payment as its message unfolded into plain fields, with the words that caused the hit underlined, the identifiers compared and cited, and a hold clock running since the stop. The agents recommend release, reject, block or ask for information in one line; the analyst releases, and the Sanctions Officer approves every reject and block.
Transaction screening checks each payment against sanctions lists before it moves, and a hit holds it while the clock runs. Transaction monitoring looks across activity after the fact for patterns that may need a SAR. Payment Sanctions Screening covers the screening side: the held payment, the decision and, for a true match, the blocked account and the report to OFAC.
Outgoing and incoming wires as ISO 20022 pacs.008 and pacs.009 or SWIFT MT messages, Nacha IAT entries with their addenda, and RTP and FedNow payments. The message reader reads every field, including the free-text remittance field where many hits sit, and the raw message stays one click away.
It does not lower the screening threshold: that stays with the screening service, read only. Instead the agents compare identifiers such as IMO numbers, BICs, registrations and dates of birth, bring back earlier decisions against the same list entry version, and propose a good-guy rule after three like releases for the Sanctions Officer to approve. After a list update, like hits are grouped so an analyst checks a sample and releases them once, with the officer's co-sign over 25.
The analyst proposes it with a reason code, and the Sanctions Officer approves or returns it; nobody approves their own proposal. Where ownership matters, the ownership agent traces the owners and applies the OFAC 50 percent rule. On approval of a block the funds move to an interest-bearing blocked account in the general ledger, a case opens, and the blocked property report is drafted against the 10-business-day deadline in 31 CFR 501.603, for the officer to sign.
Yes. The Travel Rule checker reads originator and beneficiary data on funds transfers of $3,000 or more under 31 CFR 1010.410, fills outgoing gaps from the bank's own records before the payment leaves, and drafts a request to the sending bank for an incoming gap. The request says what data is needed and never why the payment stopped, and the analyst sends it.
Yes. No agent releases, rejects, blocks, files or approves anything. Analysts can always decide differently with an override reason code, and on the sample data the agents' recommendation matched the analyst on 638 of 643 decided hits, each of the five differences recorded with its reason. Every decision is kept with its reason, evidence and list version for 10 years.
The Agentic Solution Engine builds and deploys it from your requirements and documents — your sanctions procedures, reason codes, hold clocks and earlier decisions, and the payments hub, screening service and general ledger it connects to — and it goes live once every quality gate has passed. We will walk you through it on a sample of your own held payments first.
Every OFAC report filed in 10 business days, every blocked dollar tied to the ledger.
1-min demoAdverse Media ScreeningA pile of articles becomes one cited story, decided in minutes.
1-min demoPEP ScreeningEvery PEP hit settled with its sources, and PEP treatment ends the day the rules allow.
1-min demoWe'll run Payment Sanctions Screening on a sample of your held wires, IAT and instant payments, against your own list versions and earlier decisions.