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Definition
False Positive Rate
The share of monitoring or screening alerts that, on review, reflect no suspicious activity.
By Bart Mierzejewski · Founder, FinCrime Desk · Reviewed Sep 19, 2026
Why it matters
It is the defining operational problem of the field. Industry false-positive rates in screening and monitoring are routinely quoted well above 90%, which is why most analyst headcount exists and why every vendor in the market sells against this number.
In practice
The rate is not something to minimise blindly: cutting alert volume by loosening thresholds without testing is how institutions end up with a coverage gap and a consent order. Defensible reduction means tuning supported by below-the-line testing that demonstrates the suppressed population contained no productive alerts.