OFAC Transaction Monitoring Glossary Part 1

What transaction monitoring is, and how continuous screening protects agent payments.

TL;DR

TL;DR: Transaction monitoring is the ongoing review of transactions to detect sanctions exposure and other financial crime. For agent payments it means checking each counterparty before funds move, not once at onboarding.

What transaction monitoring is

Transaction monitoring is the practice of reviewing transactions over time to catch prohibited activity. In the sanctions context it means checking each payment against the SDN List, the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List maintained by OFAC, the Office of Foreign Assets Control.

Why monitoring matters

A one-time check is not enough. The SDN List changes, and new wallet addresses are designated; the product's live data is synced hourly. Because OFAC enforcement is strict liability, intent is not required, and a payment to a newly listed party still triggers a penalty starting at $356,000 per violation.

Monitoring for agent payments

The sanctionsai.dev API screens a counterparty before each payment in one call under 100 ms, returning ALLOW or BLOCK. It covers 947 OFAC-listed crypto wallets and 19,218 SDN names across 16 jurisdictions, with a free tier of 5 checks per day and no signup. Not documented: any retrospective re-screening of historical transactions.