09/05/2011

By Scott Thompson

Swift has selected Sword FircoSoft to provide components of its new centralised Sanctions Screening service. The aim is to combine Sword FircoSoft’s filtering application and list update service with Swift, to provide a comprehensive and centralised screening service for small and medium-sized financial institutions in need of a quick and cost-effective route to compliance with sanctions regulation.

Users of the new Sanctions Screening service will be able to request selected Swift FIN messages be routed to the centralised screening application, where they will be filtered in real-time, and checked against customers’ selected sanctions lists. If there is no match to the sanctions list, the message will be delivered as usual. If there is a match, customers will be asked to instruct Swift as to whether to release, abort or flag the message via an alert management system.

Gottfried Leibbrandt, head of marketing at Swift, says: “Sanctions Screening over Swift is an important element of our strategic drive to reduce costs for our customers. The combination of our security, resilience and reach among the financial institutions that need to comply with sanctions regulations and Sword FircoSoft’s provision of market-leading filtering and list service solutions will deliver the best possible value to our customers.”

The service is scheduled to go live in late 2011.