Definition
Sanctions Screening
Matching customers, counterparties, and transaction messages against sanctions lists — principally the OFAC SDN list in the US, plus UN, EU, and UK regimes — to prevent prohibited dealings.
By Bart Mierzejewski · Founder, FinCrime Desk · Reviewed Sep 19, 2026
Why it matters
Sanctions is the highest-paid discipline in our index by posted median, and the reason is liability: OFAC operates on strict liability, so a violation does not require intent. That asymmetry drives both the conservatism of the function and the pay.
In practice
Screening splits into name screening (customers and counterparties, usually at onboarding and on list changes) and real-time transaction or payment screening. Fuzzy matching is essential and is also the source of most false positives — transliteration, name order, and common-name collisions all produce hits that a human must clear.