Real-Time OFAC Screening

Screening that occurs at the moment of transaction, before funds move, with sub-second responses.

TL;DR

TL;DR: Real-time screening checks a counterparty at the instant of payment with a sub-second response, so the decision happens before any funds transfer.

What real-time means

Real time screening means the check runs inside the transaction flow, not as a batch process afterward. The counterparty is screened at the moment of payment, and the result determines whether the transfer proceeds. For this to work, the check must return in under a second, which is why latency is a core design constraint rather than an afterthought. Sub second latency is what allows the check to live in the payment path without becoming the bottleneck.

Why batch screening is not enough

Batch screening checks counterparties on a schedule, such as nightly or weekly. A party who was clean yesterday can be designated today, and a payment in between moves against a stale result. With strict liability and penalties starting at $356,000 per violation, the gap between batch runs is real exposure. The alternative, screening after the fact, only discovers violations; it does not prevent them.

Real-time screening for agents

sanctionsai.dev is built for the live path. One HTTP call returns ALLOW or BLOCK in under 100 ms, checking 19,218 SDN names, 947 OFAC-listed wallets, and 16 jurisdictions on hourly synced data. An agent can call it inside the 4-Gate protocol's SCREEN step so the decision is made at the instant of payment, before value moves.