Sanctions and PEP lists only tell you about people who are already listed. A customer can be under investigation, charged, or widely reported in connection with fraud or corruption long before they ever appear on a formal list, if they appear at all. Adverse media screening is how you catch that earlier, softer signal.
How it works
| When | What happens |
|---|---|
| News & public sources | many outlets, languages |
| Relevance filter | match to the customer |
| Categorised hits | fraud, corruption, more |
Adverse media screening takes many news and public sources, filters them for relevance to the customer, and returns categorised risk hits such as financial crime, fraud and corruption.
Adverse media screening filters large volumes of reporting for relevance to the specific customer, then returns hits grouped by risk type so analysts can triage them.
The hard part is not finding news. It is finding the relevant news about the right person. Good screening filters for reliability and matches the story to the actual customer, so a common name or an unrelated article does not flood analysts with noise. Categorising hits by risk type, such as fraud, corruption or trafficking, lets a team triage quickly.
An ongoing control
Adverse media is most useful as part of ongoing monitoring. New reporting can surface at any time, so re-screening customers keeps the picture current rather than frozen at the moment of onboarding.
PEP vs sanctions vs adverse media Ongoing monitoring software Full AML glossary
How MemberCheck handles this
MemberCheck includes adverse media and advanced media screening, categorised by risk type, and can run it as part of daily ongoing monitoring so new reporting on an existing customer is surfaced for review.