ABOUT WORLD-CHECK

More than 3 000 institutions, including over 90% of the world's largest banks and 200 enforcement and regulatory agencies, rely on the World-Check database of known heightened-risk individuals and businesses to efficiently screen their customers, associates, transactions and employees for potential risk. This highly-structured database is updated daily in real-time by World-Check's international, research team and is derived from hundreds of thousands of public sources. It is this unprecedented commitment to ongoing research that has established World-Check as the industry standard. No other service replicates the quality of intelligence in this market-pioneering database.

Coverage includes money launderers, fraudsters, terrorists and sanctioned entities, plus individuals and businesses from over a dozen other categories.

It also covers Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs), their family members and potentially high-risk associates worldwide, thus making it the ideal risk intelligence solution for PEP and Politically Exposed Foreign Person (PEFP) screening.

World-Check's proprietary database and tools have direct uses in financial compliance, anti-money laundering (AML), Know Your Customer (KYC), Politically Exposed Person (PEP) screening, enhanced due diligence (EDD), fraud prevention, government intelligence and enforcement, and other identity authentication, background screening and risk-prevention practices.

In addition to the financial industry other client sectors include, insurance, legal, gaming, aviation, real estate, consultancy, natural resources and accounting to name but a few. 

World-Check’s acquisition of IntegraScreen has added Enhanced Due Diligence (EDD) to its risk intelligence portfolio. This new addition provides clients with ‘best of breed’ end-to-end risk management services such as customized country risk assessments, full-spectrum risk intelligence as well as comprehensive reporting, in-depth analysis and monitoring across markets and industries. Our IntegraScreen EDD Reports provide comprehensive background risk assessments of prospective and existing clients, M&A targets, IPO candidates, business partners and agents, and are designed to help mitigate international business, legal and reputational risks.

World-Check’s EDD offering is specifically designed to meet compliance obligations relating to KYC, KYE and business partner screening as required by the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), USA Patriot Act and similar legislation.

Enhanced Due Diligence is essential when:
•    Conducting pre-merger and acquisition inquiries and pre-IPO research
•    Entering into a new international joint venture
•    Engaging a critical business partner in an emerging market
•    Reviewing international hedge funds and implementing best practices for regulatory compliance and corporate governance.

Find out more about World-Check’s Enhanced Due Diligence service here.

How is World-Check’s intelligence gathered?

World-Check correlates unstructured data in order to provide highly structured intelligence that users can quickly and easily access to protect themselves from potential risk. For this task, teams of multi-lingual researchers and editors located around the world, methodically monitor and check hundreds of thousands of public sources including government, sanction and police sites as well as the national and international media. This open source information is correlated into highly structured profiles on terrorists, fraudsters, narcotics traffickers, shell banks, PEPs, organised crime, sanctioned entities, plus many other categories that pose a lesser risk but are equally of interest. Profiles are linked revealing relationship networks between family members, middlemen and associates - where the real risk often lies.

World-Check also leverages its proprietary network of users via their ability to submit, anonymously, names and details of suspicious parties they themselves have identified – for World-Check researchers to investigate and then add, as appropriate, to its master database. This unique ‘network effect’ enables member client institutions to benefit from the investigative results derived from such reported names, driving powerful user synergies across World-Check’s distribution.

How can I access World-Check?

World-Check can be accessed through two annual subscription models:
The Online version, which allows for simple manual checking of entities, one submission at a time, and the Data-File (flat file) designed for clients requiring an automated solution.

The Online service is an Internet based solution available from any pc worldwide. Updated in real-time, its quick search functionalities allows the user to enter different search criteria to instantly check whether an individual or entity carries any potential risk. The search results can be printed, emailed or saved electronically as proof of due diligence. Annual subscription allows for unlimited access, look-ups, printouts and suspicious name reporting.

The Online service has the added benefit of providing subscribers access to Passport-Check, a cutting edge solution that verifies the authenticity of 'machine readable' passports, thereby both confirming the identity of customers whilst screening them against the World-Check database in seconds. The integration of Name-Checking and ID-Document Checking into one process provides both commercial and government clients with a unique solution to match the stringent international know-your-customer due diligence obligations.

Also included in the online offering is World-Check’s purpose-built visualization tool or ‘Graphic Display’ functionality which produces 'on-the-fly' mapping of complex relationships enabling more efficient investigation of non-obvious second and third degree relationships.

The Data-File (flat file) is delivered in multiple formats (CSV or XML) and can be loaded into various software applications for screening against a broad array of customer and transactional data for comprehensive filtering. In this way sensitive customer information can be checked regularly and in-house for maximum data security and confidentiality. Additionally, World-Check’s Data-File allows for ‘dynamic downloads’, which enables clients to perform data-sliced requests, thereby downloading data subsets relevant for specific internal purposes.

World-Check’s Data-File is updated twice daily to ensure our customers have access to the latest information. Annual subscription allows for unlimited downloads

World-Check is happy to assists clients with a small customer base, make the change to automation, by offering a Filter* with the Data-File.

* Our filter is only suitable for very small institutions.

Security Policy

World-Check’s foremost priority is privacy and security. A 256-bit encryption technology is used the link between our servers and our client’s servers. Our confidentiality guarantees your anonymity; there is no monitoring, no audit trail and no record kept of any search undertaken. World-Check’s anonymity policy is regularly audited by KPMG. No other service offers this degree of security.

The Data Controller is Global World-Check Holdings Limited, 39 Dover Street, London W1S 4NN, United Kingdom (registered office). World-Check compiles public information from open sources via the internet. This information is correlated to provide the financial industry and other entities with a 'Know Your Customer' solution, in order to comply with legal requirements. World-Check as such, is used in the prevention and detection of crime and to reduce financial, reputation and regulatory/compliance risk.

If you are contacting us in the belief that World-Check holds public information about you and you wish to make a request under the Data Protection Act to view this information, please contact us at contact@world-check.com .We realise that not all public information is accurate. We welcome requests under the Data Protection Act to review data correlated so as to ensure our policy of being fair and just is adhered to.