What Businesses Should Look for in Adverse Media Screening Tools

They’re usually looking for a solution to a challenge they have; identifying customer, client or third-party risk quickly and with confidence. However, it’s not as simple as finding the one with the most data or the fastest checks; the most effective adverse media screening services often combine reliable source coverage, accurate alerts, automation, integration with wider AML compliance workflow, and ongoing monitoring

Adverse media screening, or negative news screening, as it is also known, is the process of finding unfavourable information about a person or an organisation. This is done by viewing sources which include online news, traditional news outlets, social media, and unstructured public sources. The reason behind it is to help businesses identify any potential links there might be to fraud, financial crime, corruption, reputational issues, regulatory breaches, or any other risk indicators before they enter into, or continue in, a business relationship.

For regulated businesses, adverse media checks are a crucial part of their processes in due diligence, both customer and enhanced, as well as with wider AML processes. These adverse media checks for AML compliance, etc., offer additional context and information that identity verification alone can’t provide, which helps teams in compliance to collate a clearer picture of who it is they’re dealing with and whether further investigation is needed.  

Why adverse media screening matters

Identity checks only go so far; a customer may pass that with ease, whilst still carrying risk. An example of this is that adverse media may reveal allegations of their involvement in financial crime, regulatory breaches or links to high-risk individuals, whereas identity checks would only flag any convictions, for example. This allows businesses the opportunity to monitor the situation more closely and get ahead of the situation.

Adverse media screening supports businesses in a risk-based approach by helping compliance teams to make these decisions.

What should an adverse media screening tool include?

When looking at how to screen for adverse media, it’s clear that the best screening tools should make life easier for those who are tasked with finding relevant risk information, without overwhelming teams. Checks for negative news can quickly become inefficient, especially if they're relying solely on manual searches or if they produce too many irrelevant results.

A stronger solution should support teams by providing:

• Data coverage that is both broad and reliable
• An automated method for screening for negative news
• Risk alerts that are relevant and accurate
• Ongoing monitoring to detect changing customer risk
• The ability to integrate with your wider checks, including those for AML, KYC, and KYB
• Clear reporting and audit trails
• Support for any enhanced due diligence workflows being carried out
  
  

The combination above is so effective that adverse media screening is at its best when it forms part of a wider compliance process. It’s important that screening doesn’t sit separately from identity verification, PEP screening, sanctions checks, or customer risk assessment, but rather that it helps to create a joined-up view of risk.

Reliable data coverage

A key part of adverse media screening tools is the data, namely its quality and breadth. If you put useless information into a system, then you’ll get useless information out of it, and businesses need the confidence that findings can be trusted and that checks are being made against relevant sources, with results that can help to identify meaningful risk.

Examples of adverse media may show up across a variety of sources, including traditional news outlets, public databases, blogs, online publications, and social media. The challenge here isn't simply finding the information, but identifying which bits are relevant to the customer being screened.

The stronger and more useful tools should help compliance teams separate any irrelevant or outdated mentions from the important risk indicators. This is even more important for those businesses handling high volumes of onboarding checks, where manual reviews can quickly become inaccurate and time-consuming.

Automation and efficiency

Some of the major concerns with manual adverse media searches are speed and inconsistencies that are difficult to evidence. These sorts of checks also rely heavily on the judgement of individuals, which can leave them open to variations across teams.

By automating these checks, businesses can complete checks more consistently and in a lot less time. By using an automated adverse media screening tool, repetitive manual work is significantly reduced for compliance teams, thereby improving process consistency and enabling them to focus their attention on higher-risk cases.

This is of particular value to regulated firms that need to demonstrate that checks have been carried out accurately. By automating workflows, businesses can ensure that adverse media screening is carried out as part of a structured AML process.

Accurate alerts and reduced false positives

A huge challenge with screening tools is the quality of the alerts. If your tool is pointing out too many irrelevant alerts, then this can have the effect of overwhelming teams, which, in turn, can lead to delays and a risk of genuine issues not being picked up.

A potential solution to this is to search for an adverse media screening technology that prioritises relevant results. Alerts need to be clear and useful; the aim isn’t to simply generate more alerts, but to provide better alerts that help compliance teams make stronger, informed decisions.

Ongoing monitoring

As with most security checks, adverse media screening shouldn’t be treated as a one-off. A customer may appear low risk during the onboarding process, but information may come further down the line that alerts you to a risk within their profile.

By conducting ongoing monitoring, businesses are able to identify new or emerging adverse media, changes in PEP status, sanctions exposure, or other risk indicators that emerge after the initial relationship has started. This proactive approach means that firms can respond to risk as it develops.

Quality AML screening tools, like the SmartSearch platform, support ongoing monitoring, ensuring businesses are able to regularly review customer profiles rather than simply relying on point-in-time checks.

Integration with wider AML workflows

Adverse media screening is at its most effective when working alongside wider compliance checks. SmartSearch helps with this by bringing adverse media screening in line with KYC, KYB, enhanced due diligence, PEP checks, sanctions screening, and ongoing monitoring in one platform.

This is helpful, as it isn’t often that risk can be identified through a single check. A customer may have no obvious adverse media, but that doesn’t mean they’re not appearing on a sanctions or PEP list. Another may pass identity verification with flying colours, but may still need further review due to negative news or business associations.

By having a connected workflow for all of these checks, businesses can reduce manual processes, improve consistency, and build a more complete view of customer risk.

Supporting enhanced due diligence

Adverse media screening is of particular value when a business needs to carry out enhanced due diligence. If you spot a person with a higher level of risk, then negative news checks can offer some much-needed context to support a deeper investigation.

This enables compliance teams to fully understand the nature of the risk, to decide whether or not further evidence will be needed, and then to record the reasoning behind decisions made. It also helps with supporting audit readiness by enabling teams to show how they have taken a proportionate, risk-based approach.

Finding the best adverse screening tools

Businesses that are on the lookout for the best adverse media screening tools should focus on what the capabilities are that make screening effective: reliable data coverage, automation, ongoing monitoring, auditability, accurate alerts, and integration with wider AML workflows.

It’s no longer the case that adverse media screening is just a useful additional check. For regulated businesses, financial crime screening is a crucial part of identifying financial crime risk, supporting enhanced due diligence and protecting reputation.

SmartSearch helps businesses by bringing adverse media screening into a wider AML and compliance process. This is alongside identity verification, PEP checks, ongoing monitoring, KYB, sanctions, and enhanced due diligence. This gifts compliance teams with a clearer view of customer risk, reduces the manual workload, and supports safer decisions from the beginning of the relationship. If you’re looking to strengthen your approach to adverse media screening and identify potential risks with greater confidence, request a free demo today or contact our team to find out how SmartSearch can support your compliance processes.