The ongoing war in Ukraine and resulting sanctions on Russia, and the continuing geopolitical tensions have resulted in an unprecedented increase in parties added to sanctions lists.

This coupled with widening disparity between countries in the application of sanctions and an increasingly connected world is leading to the growing problem of sanctions evasion. Increasing use of complex ownership structures, shell companies, cryptocurrencies, and other techniques, such as use of third-party companies and countries to disguise transactions and assets is causing increased sanctions challenges for the financial sector.

Banks are under intense pressure to identify and stop flows tied to sanctioned parties, but persistent information gaps make this difficult especially when it comes to sanctioned corporate ownership. Know-your-customer (KYC) processes are strained trying to identify who truly owns and controls sanctioned entities and simple list screening is no longer enough.

Another approach is required, involving all compliance functions from KYC to ongoing monitoring, to support screening of sanctions and sanctioned parties and remain compliant.

In this FStech webinar sponsored by NICE Actimize, expert speakers examine the primary difficulties banks face in manging sanctions risk in today’s world but also in detecting sanctions evasion. They will also explore why monitoring can be so difficult despite banks' best efforts, given data challenges; when it comes to sanctions evasion, the sophistication of evasion techniques, and discuss how financial institutions can leverage KYC processes and monitoring to uncover sanctioned parties or entities connected to sanctioned parties.

Viewers will come away with this webinar with a full understanding of how to continuously update KYC data, integrate insights across silos, and leverage technology to enhance detection capabilities in the ongoing battle to manage sanctions risks.