About a-team Marketing Services
The knowledge platform for the financial technology industry
The knowledge platform for the financial technology industry

A-Team Insight Blogs

SmartSearch Releases High-Risk Country Report Service in Response to Sanctions Against Russia

Subscribe to our newsletter

SmartSearch, an anti-money laundering (AML) specialist, has released a high-risk country report service in response to the introduction of sanctions against Russia. The service enables regulated businesses to scan existing clients and check for residency or citizenship in Russia, Belarus, or any other high-risk countries.

The reporting tool instantly checks all clients that the regulated business has previously run searches on, and returns matches for those that have a connection to the specified country.

The aim is to support those companies looking to quickly and efficiently evaluate their existing client bases following sanctions placed on a number of Russian individuals and businesses.

The search also provides a list of all UK business searches on companies where a corporate structure is returned and an entity within the structure is operated in a high-risk country.

“Potential reputational and financial damage for those working with clients connected to Russia or Belarus, mean regulated businesses have been reviewing their existing clients,” says Martin Cheek, managing director of SmartSearch. “This new service will give businesses peace of mind that they aren’t working with anyone they shouldn’t be.”

Headquartered in Ilkley, West Yorkshire, SmartSearch’s AML verification platform conducts individual and business searches, both for the UK and international markets, with automatic worldwide sanction and politically exposed persons (PEPs) screening. Th platform can be accessed using a browser or API and offers full sanction, PEP and adverse media screening, as well as ongoing monitoring.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Related content

WEBINAR

Recorded Webinar: Hearing from the Experts: AI Governance Best Practices

The rapid spread of artificial intelligence in the financial industry presents data teams with novel challenges. AI’s ability to harvest and utilize vast amounts of data has raised concerns about the privacy and security of sensitive proprietary data and the ethical and legal use of external information. Robust data governance frameworks provide the guardrails needed...

BLOG

What an Actimize Sale Might Mean for Surveillance and FinCrime Technology

When news emerged that NICE is preparing to sell its Actimize division – long regarded as one of the most established full-stack platforms for financial crime, fraud, and surveillance – the immediate headlines focused on valuation. With reports suggesting a price in the range of US$1.5–2 billion, the deal would be one of the RegTech...

EVENT

AI in Capital Markets Summit London

Now in its 3rd year, the AI in Capital Markets Summit returns with a focus on the practicalities of onboarding AI enterprise wide for business value creation. Whilst AI offers huge potential to revolutionise capital markets operations many are struggling to move beyond pilot phase to generate substantial value from AI.

GUIDE

Regulatory Data Handbook 2025 – Thirteenth Edition

Welcome to the thirteenth edition of A-Team Group’s Regulatory Data Handbook, a unique and practical guide to capital markets regulation, regulatory change, and the data and data management requirements of compliance across Europe, the UK, US and Asia-Pacific. This year’s edition lands at a moment of accelerating regulatory divergence and intensifying data focused supervision. Inside,...