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A SWIFT payment goes on sanctions hold when one of the banks in the chain matches a name, address or country in the payment against an OFAC, EU, UK, UN or local sanctions list. Most holds are false positives (common name matches) and clear within 1-3 business days once compliance reviews. Real matches can take weeks or result in seizure of funds.
Every bank in the SWIFT chain runs the payment through screening engines. The engines check sender, beneficiary, intermediary banks, address fields, and remittance information against active sanctions lists from OFAC (US), HM Treasury (UK), EU Council, UN Security Council, and local regulators.
False positives are common — names like 'Mohammed Khan', 'Ali Hassan', 'Maria Garcia' frequently match names on sanctions lists. The compliance officer reviews the actual payment context (real address, real bank, real business) and usually clears it within 1-3 business days.
True matches: if the actual sender, beneficiary or intermediary is a sanctioned person or entity, the payment is blocked indefinitely and the funds may be frozen. The bank reports to the regulator and the sender / beneficiary may face investigation.
What to do: if your payment is on sanctions hold, ask the sender to provide whatever information compliance needs — typically full beneficiary address, business purpose of the payment, source of funds. Respond fast — slow responses signal evasion and can escalate to a real investigation.
Most importantly: never try to disguise the beneficiary or restructure the payment to avoid screening. That is itself a sanctions violation in most jurisdictions.