Every bank in a SWIFT payment chain runs the message through sanctions screening before processing. False positives — where a legitimate party name matches a listed name closely enough to flag — are the single biggest cause of cross-border payment delays.
The screening process: each bank receives the MT103, extracts names, addresses and account numbers, and matches against several lists — OFAC (US), HM Treasury (UK), EU consolidated, UN, plus country-specific lists. Fuzzy matching catches near-misses.
When a hit occurs, the payment is parked and a compliance officer reviews. If they can confirm the party is not the listed entity, the payment releases — typically same day if reviewed during business hours, otherwise next business day.
False positives are common because: (a) sanctions lists contain very common names like "Mohammad" or "Wang"; (b) addresses without country codes can match multiple jurisdictions; (c) abbreviations like "LTD" or "GMBH" trip name-matching.
Mitigation: fully structured ISO 20022 data (postal address with country code, town, street; ultimate-debtor / ultimate-creditor separated from agent debtor) reduces false positives by 30-50%.
For high-volume corridors with frequent screening hits (USD payments to common-name countries — Pakistan, Bangladesh, Yemen — for example), some senders pre-register beneficiaries with their bank to bypass repeated screening.
True hits (the listed entity is the party) result in the payment being blocked indefinitely and reported to the relevant authority. Funds may be frozen depending on the regime.
Typical 1-24 hours during business hours. Some banks have follow-the-sun teams; many do not. Friday afternoon hits often sit until Monday.
GPI status will show ACSP (in process) at the screening bank. Your bank can ask the correspondent for the reason if status hangs there for more than 24 hours.
Yes — OFAC publishes the SDN list publicly. Pre-screening beneficiary names is a useful sanity check for high-value flows.
You need to file a release request with the relevant authority (OFAC in the US). Process takes 6-12 months and requires legal support.
Yes — structured addresses with country codes give screening engines unambiguous signals. Early adopters report 30-50% fewer false positives.