Politically Exposed Person (PEP) match

[egomeister]

I've recently applied for a card where the application was held up due to a PEP match. The customer services suggested it was a false positive and cleared it after asking for a bit more identity info.

I'm quite intrigued how this would have occurred. I can't find anything obvious online searching for my name, especially if you consider they would cross reference against address / dob etc. I also can't think of any family links or anything to do with the address that could be relevant in the last 25 years!

Does anyone who works in the finance industry have any ideas?

[TTOBES]

Depending on the employee's length of service with the entity with which you are dealing (how careful they are being), or the entity's AML procedures, this could have arisen because your name and even just year of birth matches with that of a PEP.

A PEP can be anything from a South American drug lord to the person cooking the lunches at Number 10.

Once a PEP, always a PEP is my way of thinking.

[ROSSinHD]

The provider would have run your name through something like WorldCheck, which in short is a data base of people you may not want to do business with because of criminality or people you may want to do some further know your client due diligence on before conducting business. You search by name and then discount hits using other known indicatiors such as DOB, nationality even different middle name etc.

There is a legal definition of a PEP but many firms will extend what a PEP is to them. This could stop at immediate family of the person defined as a PEP by regulation / law or a far removed as the Nanny of a PEPs kids. really depends on the firms compliance requirements. I have worked for some firms that use the regulatory / legal definition and some that have really streched this out.

Edited by ROSSinHD on Thursday 15th June 21:23

[egomeister]

Thanks for the replies - I'm assuming it was a case of poor cross referencing / filtering rather than anything sinister.

If I have problems with anything else I'll look at requesting my data from world-check as they seem to off this for free for an individual!

[DonkeyApple]

It'll just be a name match on the AML run and the clerk would have to take to Compliance for them to determine whether you are the Phantom Felcher of Clapham Common or just a normal bloke who happens to share a name with a deviant. The clerk wouldn't be allowed to sign it off.

In all likelihood if you run your name through LinkedIn the chances are you'll find a director of a firm that has governmental contracts or similar.

[Ginge R]

New money laundering guidance comes into effect on Monday (PEP Part one Chapter two of SI refers). Most of my clients are PEP exposed, either themselves or via their immediate family, so, today, nothing short of paying to use an online service like GB (link below) comes close.

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/money-...

https://www.gbgplc.com/uk/products/gbg-id3global/

[Cheib]

egomeister said:

Thanks for the replies - I'm assuming it was a case of poor cross referencing / filtering rather than anything sinister.

If I have problems with anything else I'll look at requesting my data from world-check as they seem to off this for free for an individual!

Not all firms use the same database's....I work in financial services and as a partner in an LLP I am regularly screened by clients/counterparts. Twice in the last 8 years searches have come back that I have the same name as an Irish drug dealer who was shot dead in 2008. Despite the fact this bloke is dead I still have to explain I am not actually him!

So you might find that even if you do a check on yourself nothing will come up because in my case 99% of the time it doesn't!

[wibble cb]

I was notified of a hit on a swift message I had authorised, it turned out there was a name match with one of my staff.....I was more than happy to prove that he wasn't the actual person on their list !