Name Screening
Name screening end to end. What screening is and what a third-party platform does and does not do; sanctions and sanctions screening; politically exposed persons, their family members and close associates; adverse media and open-source research; then alert triage, investigation, the decision and when to escalate.
5 modules · 70 lessons · 364 min
$99
12 months’ access from purchase · ex GST
New here? Create an account
- On-demand, watch on any device
- Branded completion certificate
- Knowledge assessment
General information only, current as at 1 September 2026. Not legal, financial or regulatory advice. Laws and AUSTRAC guidance change. Use at your own discretion. See our content disclaimer.
About this course
A screening platform returns matches. It does not tell you whether the person in front of you is the person on the list, and it cannot make the decision that follows. This course is about the judgement between the alert and the outcome. Five modules. The first covers what name screening is for and how third-party screening platforms actually behave, including what their matching does and where it is weak. The second covers sanctions: the instruments, Australia’s regulator, United Nations listings, and what screening against them requires in practice. The third covers politically exposed persons in depth, including family members and close associates, and why a match is a relationship to assess rather than a finding. The fourth covers adverse media screening and open-source research: what counts, how to weigh a source, and how to avoid both over-reacting to noise and missing what matters. The fifth is the working end of it, alert triage through to decision: how to investigate an alert, how to reach a true or false match conclusion you can defend, what to record, and when to escalate. The course is written for the analyst working the alert queue, and for anyone reviewing that work. It assumes familiarity with customer due diligence rather than legal training.
Curriculum
Understanding Name Screening and Third-Party Screening Platforms
- What Name Screening IsPreview5 min
- Why Is Name Screening Important?, and the Legal and Regulatory Sources6 min
- The Sanctions Offence: Penalties, Strict Liability and the Reasonable-Precautions Defence7 min
- The Charter of the United Nations Act, and 5. Main types of name screening7 min
- When Should Screening Occur, and Who May Need to Be Screened7 min
- 8-10. What Name Screening Is Not (Identity Verification, Transaction Screening, Transaction Monitoring)5 min
- Third-Party Screening Providers, and What the Platform Does and Does Not Decide5 min
- Responsibilities That Remain, Provider Arrangements, and CDD Reliance6 min
- 17. Questions analysts should ask about a third-party result, 18. Data quality5 min
- 19. Automated Alert Closure, 20. An Alert Is Not a Confirmed Match4 min
- Match Decision Versus Risk Decision, and the Practical Case Study6 min
- Analyst Tips, Common Mistakes, Module Summary4 min
Sanctions and Sanctions Screening
- What Are Sanctions, Australia's Regulator, and UN Security Council Sanctions7 min
- 4. Australian autonomous sanctions; 5. Country-based and thematic sanctions6 min
- 6. Targeted financial sanctions; 7. Making an asset available4 min
- Asset-Freezing Requirements5 min
- Travel Bans and Arms Embargoes3 min
- Import and Export Restrictions; Services Restrictions; Sectoral Restrictions5 min
- Commercial and Investment Restrictions; The Consolidated List and Commercial Platforms8 min
- OFAC, UK and EU Sanctions5 min
- Ownership, Control and Indirect Benefit5 min
- Sanctions Alert Priority, Response and Notification6 min
- Sanctions Permits; No Direct Name Match Case Study6 min
- Analyst Tips, Common Mistakes and Module Summary5 min
Politically Exposed Persons, Family Members and Close Associates
- What Is a Politically Exposed Person?7 min
- Foreign PEPs5 min
- 5. Domestic PEPs6 min
- International-Organisation PEPs, Comparing PEP Categories, and Family Members6 min
- Who Is a Relevant Family Member?; Investigating a Family-Member Alert4 min
- 11. What is a close associate?; 12. Joint beneficial ownership; 13. Sole ownership for a PEP's benefit5 min
- Close Business Relations, What Does Not Count, and Friends5 min
- 17. Who must be checked?5 min
- 18. Methods of establishing PEP status; 19. Third-party PEP databases4 min
- Regulatory Treatment Versus Actual Risk; Higher-Risk PEP Factors6 min
- Illustrative PEP Risk Comparison; Current PEPs; Former PEPs6 min
- 25. Foreign PEPs and ECDD; 26. Domestic and international-organisation PEPs; 27. Senior-manager approval5 min
- 28. Source of Funds; 29. Source of Wealth3 min
- 30. Evidence used to assess source; 31. Step-by-step approach5 min
- 32. Practical case study, Foreign PEP and close associate5 min
- 33. Analyst tips; 34. Common mistakes; 35. Module summary6 min
Adverse Media Screening and Open-Source Research
- What Is Adverse Media?5 min
- Why Adverse Media Matters; Direct Adverse Media4 min
- 5. Indirect Adverse Media; 6. Subject, Associate, Witness or Victim?4 min
- 7. Does the information concern the customer?; 8. Timeline analysis; 9. Former names and aliases4 min
- 10. Source credibility; 11. Source hierarchy; 12. Official information is not always a conviction5 min
- Government and Media Environments; Repetition Is Not Corroboration; Allegation4 min
- 16. Investigation; 17. Arrest; 18. Charge; 19. Conviction; 20. Acquittal, dismissal or withdrawal5 min
- 21. Civil and regulatory findings; 22. Insolvency and business failure; 23. Financial crime relevance; 24. Seriousness5 min
- 25. Recency; 26. Pattern and frequency; 27. Customer transparency; 28. Structured adverse-media assessment6 min
- 29. What is open-source research?; 30. Define the research question; 31. Constructing effective searches5 min
- Search Variations, Snippets, Social Media and AI-Generated Information5 min
- Foreign-Language Sources, Outcomes and Documentation6 min
- Adverse Media, ECDD and SMR Consideration4 min
- Practical Case Study, Allegation, Charge or Conviction?5 min
- Analyst Tips, Common Mistakes and Module Summary6 min
Screening Alert Investigation, Decisions and Escalation
- What Is Alert Triage?6 min
- Types of Name Matching4 min
- Reversed Names, Aliases and Step One5 min
- The Investigation Framework, Steps 2 to 44 min
- Assessing Reliability and Comparing Identifiers5 min
- Missing Information, Identifier Strength and Match Scores5 min
- Photographs, Further Research, and Context4 min
- Customer Contact and Clear False Positives4 min
- Alert Outcomes5 min
- Escalation and Risk-Responsive ECDD5 min
- A Screening Alert Is Not Automatically an SMR4 min
- Tipping Off and the Investigation Record5 min
- Recurring Alerts and Quality Assurance4 min
- Practical Integrated Case Study8 min
- Analyst Tips, Common Mistakes and Module Summary6 min