OFAC Fincen Compliance Guide Part 1
How OFAC sanctions screening relates to FinCEN and the broader US Treasury compliance picture.
TL;DR
TL;DR: OFAC and FinCEN are separate US Treasury offices with different jobs. OFAC enforces the SDN List, and this screening API focuses there: clean parties ALLOW and flagged parties BLOCK.
Two Treasury offices, two roles
FinCEN, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, administers anti-money-laundering rules. OFAC, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, enforces sanctions through the SDN List. Both sit in the US Treasury, but sanctions screening targets the SDN List and its listed wallets.
What the API screens
The screening API loads 19,218 SDN names from the US Treasury sdn.csv and 947 OFAC-listed crypto wallets across 16 jurisdictions, synced hourly. It returns a decision in under 100 ms, so an agent can check a counterparty before payment.
Practical guidance
- Screen against the SDN List before every payment.
- Treat OFAC and AML obligations as separate programs.
- STAMP each decision for audit records.