About a-team Marketing Services
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: Sponsored by FundGuard: NAV Resilience Under DORA, A Year of Lessons Learned

The EU’s Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) came into force a year ago, and is reshaping how asset managers, asset owners and fund service providers think about operational risk. While DORA’s focus is squarely on ICT resilience and third-party dependencies, its implications extend deep into core operational processes that are critical to market integrity, investor...

BLOG

Regnology Moves from Platform Integration to Agentic Reporting

Regnology is moving into the next phase of its expansion, applying agentic artificial intelligence to the regulatory reporting, risk and finance capabilities assembled through its recent acquisitions. When RegTech Insight last spoke with chief executive Rob Mackay in early 2026, the company was integrating Wolters Kluwer’s Financial Risk and Reporting business and regulatory-reporting assets acquired...

EVENT

TradingTech Summit New York

Our TradingTech Summit in New York is aimed at senior-level decision makers in trading technology, electronic execution, trading architecture and offers a day packed with insight from practitioners and from innovative suppliers happy to share their experiences in dealing with the enterprise challenges facing our marketplace.

GUIDE

AI in Capital Markets Handbook 2026

AI adoption in capital markets has moved into a more disciplined phase. The priority is now controlled deployment: where AI can be used safely, where it can deliver measurable value, and how outputs can be governed, monitored and evidenced. The 2026 edition of the AI in Capital Markets Handbook examines how AI is being applied...