When you extend trade credit, you're taking on financial and compliance risk. Checking customer and business names against watchlists helps you avoid doing business with prohibited, high-risk, or fraudulent entities.
What Are Watchlists?
Watchlists are government and regulator-maintained lists identifying individuals or businesses that are connected to:
Sanctions or similar restricted activities
Fraud or financial crime
Money laundering or terrorist financing
Enforcement actions or regulatory penalties
Political exposure (PEPs)
Watchlist Screening on Nuvo
Nuvo passes the applicant's company and personnel names from the matched Secretaries of State through a set of watchlists to flag potential matches.
Matches are based on name similarity. That means that a business or person with a name that is very similar (or the same) to a listed watchlist entity may be flagged. Because many companies and individuals have similar names, there is a high false-positive rate of potential matches.
For example, Steven Lee might be matched to Steven Lei or Steven Le.
What To Do If There Is a Potential Match
Because matches have a high false positive rate, it is important to look into potential matches to see if the organization that was flagged is the same entity that is applying to your business.
Nuvo recommends going directly to the watchlist registry to check additional identifiers (full listed name, address) against the application. Additionally, you can run a search engine query, or make calls to understand if the applicant is a true match.
Nuvo Supported Watchlists
Watchlist | Organization |
Entity List (EL) | Bureau of Industry and Security |
Denied Persons List (DPL) | Bureau of Industry and Security |
Military End User (MEU) | Bureau of Industry and Security |
ITAR Debarred (DTC) | State Department |
Nonproliferation Sanctions (ISN) | State Department |
Capta List (CAP) | Department of the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) |
Foreign Sanctions Evaders (FSE) | Department of the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) |
Non-SDN Menu-Based Sanctions (NS-MBS) | Department of the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) |
Non-SDN Iranian Sanctions (NS-ISA) | Department of the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) |
Non-SDN Chinese Military-Industrial Complex Companies List (NS-CMIC) | Department of the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) |
Non-SDN Palestinian Legislative Council List (PLC) | Department of the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) |
Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) | Department of the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) |
Sectoral Sanctions Identifications List (SSI) | Department of the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) |