Sanctions Screening Transformation for a Global Speciality Insurer
RESULTS
Automated Screening System
Improved Compliance Assurance
Significant Operational Efficiency Gains
Reduced Manual Overhead
Client Overview
A fast-growing global speciality insurer engaged Brighter Consultancy to lead the overhaul of its sanctions screening system. Facing increasing regulatory pressure, particularly following a wave of Russian sanctions and a critical FCA industry review, the client needed a solution that could effectively scale with the business, improve outcomes, reduce false positives, and address key compliance risks. The existing provider exhibited significant control weaknesses, including inadequate fuzzy logic and distance matching capabilities, as well as a very high false positive rate. A “lift and shift” approach with another provider was deemed insufficient.
Brighter was tasked with managing the selection, assessment, and recommendation of a fit-for-purpose screening provider and process.
Our Solution
Rigorous Vendor Selection Process
Conducted a comprehensive vendor assessment process using clearly defined criteria to evaluate end-to-end capabilities, automation, AI capabilities, governance, and cost-effectiveness.
Audit-Aligned Screening Transformation
Responded directly to regulator concerns by selecting a solution that addressed the core weaknesses in the current controls: automation gaps, poor data matching, and excessive manual handling.
Modernised Compliance Workflow
Recommended an automated screening solution supported by AI-led data extraction and dynamic sanctions screening, significantly reducing manual effort and enhancing reliability.
Operational De-Risking
Minimised reliance on Compliance and Underwriting teams by selecting a vendor that offered a Level one review layer and only escalates truly contentious matches.
Operationalised Risk Appetite
Worked closely with the client’s Compliance and Risk teams to translate abstract risk thresholds into actionable rules, enabling the screening engine to apply context-sensitive logic that aligned with the firm’s risk tolerance.
Realigned Operating Model
Redesigned workflows and team structures across Compliance and Operations to support a seamless transition to the new screening process, ensuring buy-in and readiness across
impacted business units.
Project Objectives
- Identify and recommend a sanctions screening provider that can support future business scale.
- Improve the accuracy of match identification and reduce the number of false positives.
- Eliminate the reliance on inefficient manual processes.
- Ensure end-to-end automation, including API-based updates to internal systems (InRisk).
- Embracing AI to deliver superior outcomes via automated data extraction, data cleansing and distance matching.
- Align screening capabilities with regulatory expectations and industry best practice.
- Prevent a repeat of historical match failures or near misses.
Outcomes
- Recommended NTT Data’s Sanctions Compliance Service, which integrates market-leading technologies (Eigen, Global RADAR, Outsystems) to provide intelligent screening across both structured and unstructured data.
- Automated Name Extraction & Screening, enabling full lifecycle coverage—from policy document ingestion to screening and results push via API to internal systems.
- Dramatically Reduced False Positives, reducing the burden on Compliance and eliminating unnecessary involvement of Underwriting teams.
- Scalable & Efficient Solution, enabling up to 30,000% faster processing and 300% quality improvement compared to manual controls and positioning the client for continued global growth.
- Governance & Control Improvements, including BPO-managed reviews, structured escalation paths, and a future-ready integration model.
- Reduced manual workload by 100%, removing data extraction and name-keying tasks from compliance professionals and significantly decreasing the concern rate from 20% to 0.2% (a 99% reduction) - further reinforcing control efficiency.
- Enabled more comprehensive sanctions screening coverage- including a forensic approach for high-risk business lines- without increasing costs, thereby enhancing compliance posture within a similar budget.
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Outcomes
- Prevented a suboptimal lift-and-shift transition, avoiding the replication of outdated processes with the incumbent supplier.
- Challenged legacy vendor assumptions, driving a smarter, data-driven solution architecture.
- Delivered a strategic roadmap, aligning Compliance, Technology, and Operations stakeholders around a single vision for sanctions control maturity.
- Enabled regulatory defensibility through a best-in-class solution that demonstrates robust control design and operational effectiveness.
- Reduced internal burden, with fewer escalations, streamlined workflows, and a significant drop in FTE resource drain within Compliance.
- Helped the client operationalise their risk appetite by embedding clear, quantitative thresholds into the new system logic and control flows.
- Supported realignment of operational teams, ensuring seamless adoption of the new screening model without business disruption.
- Removed operational inefficiencies by automating manual data handling and reducing the concern handling rate from 20% to just 0.2%, enabling Compliance professionals to focus on high-value risk decision-making.
- Allowed the client to achieve greater screening coverage and regulatory robustness for the same cost as the previous solution, using NTT Data’s scalable and automated model and Brighter’s guidance on an effective and proportionate risk-based approach.