09:21 PM
Fear Factor
Factor3, a Colorado Springs-based software vendor specializing in USA Patriot Act-compliance monitoring, has partnered with Language Analysis Systems, a Herndon, Va.-based software vendor, to offer a name-checking tool with its PACMonitor product suite.
The tool, called NameHunter, enables financial firms to more thoroughly check new customers against watch lists issued by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, says Peter Gadkowski, CEO of Factor3.
The solution accounts for misspellings and name derivations of any new account applicant, Gadkowski explains, as well as translates foreign characters into an English character set.
Gadkowski says that entering names manually, as well as the lack of familiarity with foreign spellings from global business, can lead to spelling errors. "This tool gives firms a higher assurance that they are more likely than not to catch inclusions on the OFAC lists," he adds.
NameHunter also determines the most-likely country of origin of each name, even if that name isn't on an OFAC list, Gadkowski says. "Financial institutions may have reasons, because of their own risk analysis, that they want to have a higher level of investigation for people whose names are from certain countries," he adds.
The module is currently available at no additional cost to current users of PACMonitor. New users can purchase the module as a package with the PACMonitor suite, or as a standalone feature. It is offered either on an application-service-provider basis or as an in-house installation, and is priced by number of transactions and watch lists that must be checked.
www.factor3.com
303.730.9176