Reviewing PEP and Sanction Hits
This guide covers how to review the PEP and sanction hits Strise finds for a company or person: where to find them, how they are grouped, how to confirm or dismiss a hit, and where every decision is recorded. For how screening is configured, see PEP Settings and Sanctions Settings. For what PEPs and RCAs are, see PEPs and RCAs.
Recording a decision needs a role that handles dispositions, such as Analyst or Manager — see Roles and Permissions. Without it, the review opens read-only with the notice "You don't have write access".
Where to review
- The entity page -- open the PEPs & Sanctions tab. The review opens in a panel beside the page.
- The side panel -- open the PEPs or Sanctions tab. The review opens as a dialog.
- A review -- the PEPs and Sanctions sections list the same hits, and the review opens as a dialog.
- A monitoring alert -- PEP and sanction alerts open the same review as a dialog. See Reviewing from a monitoring alert.
The decision you record is the same wherever you make it.
The hit card
Each screened person or company gets one card listing its hits. Every hit shows the listing it matched and a match badge such as "85% match". Hover over the badge to see how the score was built up from the individual fields.
On a company's page, a person's card shows their relationship to the company under their name: whether they are a beneficial owner, their role, and their ownership share, for example "Beneficial owner of Acme AS · CEO of Acme AS · 70% ownership in Acme AS".
The button on the card tells you where it stands:
- Review -- at least one hit on the card has no decision yet.
- See details -- every hit on the card has been decided. The card shows who decided it, for example "Confirmed as PEP by" followed by their name.
- Verify -- no hits were found. See Verifying a person or company with no hits.
Once someone has verified a person or company with no hits, its card shows See details instead of Verify, with the verdict and who recorded it, for example "Confirmed not a PEP/RCA by" or "Confirmed no sanctions by" followed by their name.
How hits are grouped
Cards are sorted into sections, so the ones that need attention come first.
| PEPs | Sanctions | What it holds |
|---|---|---|
| Needs input | Needs input | At least one hit scored at or above your match threshold and nobody has decided on it yet. |
| Confirmed PEP/RCA | Confirmed sanction | Hits verified as genuine matches. |
| Below match threshold | Below match threshold | Hits that scored below the match threshold and have no decision. No decision is needed. |
| Confirmed false positive | Confirmed false positive | Hits reviewed and dismissed as false matches. They stay visible so the decision is on record. |
| No hits | No hits | Screened persons or companies with no matches. |
Needs input and the confirmed section are open by default; the other sections are collapsed.
Here, the match threshold is your team's Suggested true match threshold setting (not the separate Match threshold setting), configured separately for PEPs and sanctions. A hit below it doesn't need a decision, but you can still open it from the card and confirm or dismiss it.
Dow Jones sanctions on several lists
Dow Jones sanctions are grouped by sanctioned person or company. When the same Dow Jones profile appears on several sanctions lists, it is one hit. Its card and review show every programme included by your team's Sanctions Settings. An excluded list's programme is hidden; if all its lists are excluded, the hit is hidden too. Entries from Strise's other sanctions sources remain separate hits.
Decisions made before grouping carry over, including when only some of the earlier hits had been reviewed. If those decisions conflict, the most recent decision applies. The earlier decisions stay in the audit trail.
A decision on the grouped hit covers the programmes currently included by your settings. If the entity is later added to another enabled list, the hit needs a new decision. Monitoring treats that added list as a new hit, subject to your alert settings. Grouping existing lists alone does not create an alert or an activity log entry.
Reviewing a hit
Click Review (or anywhere on the card) to open the review.
When the card has one hit, the review shows it straight away under a heading such as PEP hit, RCA hit or Sanction hit. When it has several, each hit is a row; click a row to expand it. For each hit you see:
- The listing -- the record Strise matched, with its match badge and links to the source.
- Match details -- the person's or company's own data set against the listing, field by field.
- Decision -- choose one of:
- Confirm PEP status, Confirm RCA status or Confirm PEP/RCA status for a PEP listing, or Confirm sanction for a sanction listing.
- Mark as false positive to dismiss it.
- Comment (optional) -- add context for the audit trail. The comment is saved with the decision so the next reviewer can see why the call was made.
- Click Submit decision.
When a hit scored at or above your match threshold, the confirm option is marked Suggested. When it scored below, the decision is marked No decision required. The suggestion comes from the match score alone; the decision is always yours.
Deciding several hits at once
When a review holds several hits that are still open, you can decide them in one go:
- Tick the checkbox on each hit you want to decide, or the checkbox next to the heading to select every open hit.
- A bar appears at the bottom of the review. With two hits selected it reads Decide 2 hits together.
- Choose one decision and, optionally, one comment. The same decision and comment are recorded against each selected hit.
- Submit. With two hits selected, the button reads Decide 2 hits until you choose a decision, then Confirm 2 hits or Dismiss 2 hits.
Only open hits can be selected. A hit that already has a decision has to be reopened first.
Changing a decision
Open the hit and click Reopen decision. The decision options come back, and you can record a new decision with a new comment. The earlier decision stays in the audit trail.
Audit trail
Each decided hit shows an Audit trail with every decision recorded on that match, most recent first.
For the full history of a person or company, click See audit trail at the top of the review. It lists every decision with its Date, Action, Comment and User. Click Download as CSV to export it, for example as evidence for an audit. Go back returns to the review.
Verifying a person or company with no hits
Screening can miss what you know from other sources. To record your own verification on a person or company with no hits:
- Click Verify on its card in No hits.
- Under Decision, choose:
- for PEPs: Is PEP, Is RCA or Is not a PEP
- for sanctions: Is sanctioned or Is not sanctioned
- Fill in the details the form asks for. For a PEP that is Role or Reason and Date; for an RCA, Relation, Who is the PEP, PEP Role or Reason and Date; for a sanction, Program.
- Add a comment if you want, and click Confirm.
The verification is recorded in the audit trail like any other decision.
A verification that the person or company is not a PEP or not sanctioned stays in No hits. Click See details on its card to open it: the review shows only its Audit trail, with the verdict, the date and your comment, and a Reopen decision button. There is no listing and no match details, because nothing was matched.
A verification that the person or company is a PEP, an RCA or sanctioned appears as a hit. On the card it shows what you entered (the role, the relation or the program), marked Manually added, with a line such as "PEP hit added by", "RCA hit added by" or "Sanction added by" followed by your name, and your comment. It has no match badge, because it was entered by hand rather than matched against a list. In the review it sits under PEP registry information or Sanction registry information, marked Manual, followed by its Audit trail and a Reopen decision button; there are no Match details.
To change either kind of verification, click Reopen decision. The verification form opens in the review with the recorded answer filled in. Change it and click Confirm to record the new answer, or click Cancel to leave the decision as it was. Nothing is saved until you confirm.
Reviewing from a monitoring alert
A PEP or sanction alert lists the entity's hits under headings that say what changed since the last screening run, for example "New PEP hits: 2":
- New -- hits that did not exist before.
- Changed -- hits whose listing details changed.
- Removed -- hits that no longer match.
- Unchanged -- hits that were already there, collapsed by default.
The button at the bottom of the alert opens the review for the new, changed and unchanged hits, and reads Review, See details or Verify just like the hit card. Removed hits are shown in the alert for the record but are not part of the review. A PEP or sanction someone added by hand can appear in an alert too; its listing is marked Manually added.
When you're done, resolve the alert as described in Working with Monitoring Alerts.
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