How a Scrutinex report is produced
Five stages, in order. Automated screening finds candidates; a person decides what they mean. The method is written out here so you can judge the depth before you buy.
01
Intake and identifier check
You tell us who the subject is and what the report is for. We require the subject's full legal name plus at least one hard identifier: a company registration number and jurisdiction, or, for a person, a date of birth or nationality.
This requirement is not administrative. Screening a common name against a sanctions list without an identifier returns dozens of possible matches and resolves none of them. The identifier is what turns a name search into a subject search.
We also record your stated purpose. Orders for employment, tenancy, credit or insurance decisions are declined at this stage, because those decisions are governed by consumer reporting law and this is not a consumer report.
02
Automated screening
The subject and every associated party we identify are run against the following, in parallel:
- Corporate registries in the jurisdiction of incorporation, plus any secondary jurisdictions the subject discloses
- OFAC Specially Designated Nationals and consolidated non-SDN lists
- UN Security Council Consolidated List
- EU Consolidated List of persons, groups and entities subject to financial sanctions
- Politically exposed person records, including close associates and family where published
- ICIJ Offshore Leaks Database for offshore entities, officers and intermediaries
- Structured adverse media search in English and the relevant local languages
Each query is logged with its source and timestamp as it runs. That log becomes the final section of your report.
03
Routing: auto-clear or human review
Screening output is a set of candidate matches, not conclusions. Every result is routed one of two ways.
auto clear
No match on any list, registry data consistent with what the subject disclosed, and no adverse media of substance. The finding is recorded with its source and the report proceeds.
needs human_review
Any sanctions or PEP hit, any offshore linkage, any ambiguous or partial name match, any registry inconsistency, any dissolved or struck-off status, or any adverse media item that requires judgement. These never appear in a report unresolved.
04
Analyst review
Flagged findings go to an analyst with government anti-money-laundering and compliance experience. The analyst reads the underlying record, not the match score: the actual designation entry, the actual filing, the actual article.
The analyst's job is to answer one question per flag — is this the subject, and if so, what does it mean for the transaction you described? A shared surname with a designated individual is written up as exactly that. A director who also appears as the nominee of an offshore holding company is written up as exactly that.
On Full reports the analyst reviews the entire file, not only the flags, corroborates registry data against primary filings, and conducts reference calls where you have supplied contacts.
05
Delivery
You receive a sectioned PDF. It opens with the bottom line in one paragraph, followed by key findings, risk drivers, and recommended next steps written for the decision you told us you were making.
The final section is the sources and verification log: every database, registry and document consulted, the date it was checked, and what it returned. Nothing in the report is asserted without a source you can go and check yourself.
Turnaround and limits
Standard reports are delivered in 2 business days, Full reports in 5. Jurisdictions with paper-only or fee-gated registries can take longer; we tell you before we start, not after.
Where a record does not exist or is not public, the report says so explicitly. An honest "no record available in this jurisdiction, checked on this date" is worth more than a confident finding with nothing behind it.