OFAC Name Screening

Checking an individual or organization name against the SDN List using exact and fuzzy matching.

TL;DR

TL;DR: Name screening compares a counterparty name against the SDN List, combining exact matching with fuzzy matching to catch spelling variations and transliterations.

Exact versus fuzzy matching

Exact matching finds a name that corresponds precisely to a list entry. Fuzzy matching catches near matches: misspellings, alternate spellings, abbreviations, and different transliterations of the same name. Both matter because sanctioned parties routinely vary the spelling of their names to evade a literal lookup. A screening system that only does exact matches will miss most of these evasions. A good name screen also considers aliases and transliterations, since the same person may appear under multiple spellings across languages.

Why name data quality matters

The value of name screening depends on the underlying list. An outdated or incomplete list produces clean results for parties that are actually blocked. OFAC publishes the SDN List as sdn.csv, and screening should run against current data rather than a snapshot that has drifted. The tradeoff is between false negatives, which let a sanctioned party through, and false positives, which create review overhead.

Name screening for agent payments

sanctionsai.dev screens names against 19,218 SDN names from the US Treasury sdn.csv, synced hourly. An agent submits a counterparty name before paying, and receives ALLOW for a clean match or BLOCK for a flagged one. The risk_score tool adds a score on top of the match, giving the agent a graded signal instead of a bare yes or no.