How a Global Protection and Services Provider Strengthened Sanctions Screening with FinScan
Updated: 7 days ago
Selected after evaluating approximately 15 providers, FinScan delivers integrated data quality capabilities, flexible screening, and greater control over compliance operations.
A global protection and services provider helps businesses across retail, telecommunications, and financial services protect their customers’ devices, appliances, and other valuable assets through insurance, warranties, and support services. Operating across multiple industries and partner networks, the company manages customer information from numerous sources, each with different systems, formats and levels of data quality.
After 10 years with its existing sanctions screening provider, the company began evaluating alternatives as growing client demand for ultimate beneficial owner (UBO) screening exposed limitations in its current solution. The company needed more than expanded screening capabilities. It wanted a solution that could accommodate its complex data environment, provide greater visibility and control over matching rules, and adapt to evolving compliance requirements.
Following an evaluation of approximately 15 providers, narrowed to five finalists, the company selected FinScan. What set FinScan apart was its understanding of challenges inherent in insurance data, its built-in data quality capabilities, and the flexibility to work with existing systems without extensive modifications. The implementation gave the compliance team greater control over its screening processes and quickly demonstrated its value when FinScan identified a sanctions match that the team confirmed and acted upon.
The Challenge: Complex Data and Evolving Compliance Requirements
Meeting new requirements while working with complex customer data
The company's existing screening approach had become increasingly difficult to adapt to changing requirements and the realities of its diverse customer data.
Key challenges included:
Inconsistent customer data. Information arrived from multiple partners, ranging from verified identity records to names entered informally by consumers. Missing identifiers, particularly dates of birth, made accurate name matching more challenging.
Multiple systems and file formats. Daily and monthly screening files originated from numerous applications. Standardizing every data feed to meet a new provider's requirements would require significant IT resources.
Limited control over screening rules. The existing process largely involved submitting files and receiving results, with little visibility into matching configurations or opportunities to optimize screening.
Evolving compliance requirements. Growing client demand for UBO screening prompted the company to reassess its broader sanctions screening capabilities.
Why FinScan: Understanding the Data Behind Effective Screening
FinScan's approach to data quality was a key factor in the company's decision, distinguishing it from other providers during the evaluation.
“FinScan understood the data challenges straight away. Other providers assumed we had good data. FinScan recognized that insurance data can be incomplete and inconsistent and had the data quality capabilities to address it.”
Beyond data quality, FinScan offered the flexibility to accommodate existing systems and gave the compliance team greater visibility and control over its screening configurations.
The Solution: Flexible Screening Without Disrupting Existing Operations
The company implemented FinScan in the cloud, retaining its existing file transfer process and accommodating screening feeds from multiple applications.
This flexibility reduced the need for extensive changes to upstream systems and allowed the company to transition without rebuilding its existing data infrastructure.
“We chose FinScan because it was flexible. We had different systems producing different files, and we didn't have time to rebuild everything around a prescribed format. FinScan could work with what we already had.”
The implementation provides several capabilities:
Flexible data integration. FinScan accepts daily and monthly files from multiple applications without requiring every source to conform to a single prescribed format.
Configurable screening and matching. The compliance team can review matching rules, test adjustments, and evaluate different configurations based on the quality and characteristics of client data.
Centralized screening operations. Approximately 50users across Europe participate in screening reviews, conducting initial reviews and the Compliance team providing second-line oversight.
Greater operational visibility. Reporting capabilities provide insight into completed and pending reviews, helping teams manage screening workloads.
Secure user access. Integration with identity & access management tools supports the company's existing single sign-on environment.
Throughout implementation, FinScan's team worked closely with the customer to address technical questions, resolve issues, and maintain progress. The customer particularly valued the team's responsiveness and practical approach to implementation challenges.
The Results: Greater Control, Visibility, and Confidence in Screening
The transition to FinScan has given the company greater control over its sanctions screening operations, allowing its compliance team to understand how matching rules work, assess screening results, and make more informed configuration decisions.
An actionable sanctions match
Early in the implementation, FinScan identified a potential match against the OFAC sanctions list. Following investigation, the compliance team confirmed the match and took action to remove the individual from its customer base.
The case reinforced the importance of maintaining screening controls aligned with the company's own compliance obligations
Greater control over matching configurations
Previously, the company had limited visibility into how screening rules were configured. With FinScan, it can now examine those rules, test changes in a dedicated environment, and evaluate their impact before adjusting.
This is particularly valuable when screening records with varying levels of completeness and reliability.
“Before, we had very little visibility into the rules. Now we can see the setup and test what happens when we change it. Being able to do that ourselves is really useful.”
Improved visibility into screening operations
FinScan's reporting capabilities give operational and compliance teams a clearer view of screening activity, including completed reviews and outstanding potential matches.
This supports better oversight across the company's operations and helps teams track the status of their screening workloads.
A smoother transition and greater operational independence
FinScan's ability to accommodate existing data feeds helped limit the initial IT effort required for implementation.
Following initial training, the company's administrator was able to explore the platform independently and work with internal training teams to prepare additional users.
The compliance team can also use the test environment to investigate potential improvements without relying entirely on the screening provider to make configuration changes.
Looking Ahead: Continuing to Optimize Screening
With FinScan in place, the company is focused on further improving the quality of its customer data and refining its screening configurations.
Priorities include working to capture dates of birth more consistently, testing specific matching rules, and planning an API integration to further streamline operations.
The company has also established an internal expectation that new customers provide dates of birth alongside customer names, helping strengthen the quality of information available for screening.
By combining integrated data quality capabilities, flexible matching, and greater operational control, FinScan provides a foundation for the company to evolve its sanctions screening program as business and compliance requirements change.
