Global Watchlist and Sanctions (GWS) checks involve searching reliable restriction and sanctioning registries to ascertain if a candidate's name appears on international government sanctions lists, including the OFAC SDN List, US ITA Consolidated Sanctions List, Her Majesty’s Treasury list, EU sanctions lists, UN Consolidated lists, and more.
GWS checks are often run to fulfill anti-money laundering (AML) and know your customer (KYC) obligations, and to generally mitigate risk. Your AML and KYC obligations may vary depending on your industry, compliance standards, and/or applicable laws and regulations.This check serves to identify individuals who may have been identified at a governmental level as a person of interest.
Note: The Global Watchlist and Sanctions check is one of several check types which comprised Softcheck in Certn's legacy system.
In this article
Order this check
To order a Global Watchlist and Sanctions check from CertnCentric you must have the applicant’s email address. For more information on ordering checks through CertnCentric, see the Order checks Certn Help article.
Turnaround time for this check
On average, Certn’s Global Watchlist and Sanctions checks are complete within 60 seconds of an applicant submitting their information.
US-based applicants may be subject to a manual review which takes an average of 24 hours to complete.
Stages of this check
Global Watchlist and Sanctions checks ordered through CertnCentric go through the following stages:
1. Order
You place an order that includes a Global Watchlist and Sanctions check.
2. Application
The applicant receives an email invitation to complete the case that includes a Global Watchlist and Sanctions check.
3. Processing
Certn processes the check using the information supplied by the applicant.
4. Results
The check's results become available to you in CertnCentric and to the applicant in the applicant portal.
Applicant experience
When you order an Global Watchlist and Sanctions check your applicant receives an email inviting them to complete an online form for the included checks. Through this process, an applicant will supply Certn with their:
- consent and authorization to run the check,
- full name (including previous names and aliases),
- date of birth,
- address details and when they started living there, as well as
- address details of the position for which they are applying (includes options for no specific address and remote work).
Next steps
After you've placed your order and Certn has received the required details from your applicant, the check begins processing.
You can view the case and check results in CertnCentric. Learn more in our Manage your cases Certn Help article.
To learn more about this check’s results and what happens if the applicant can’t complete the check, see our Global Watchlist and Sanctions checks results Certn Help article.