Verify business legitimacy using our OFAC list search tool
Screen using Middesk’s OFAC sanctions database, imported directly from OFAC’s sanctions lists, to know which businesses and people to avoid associating with in B2B relationships.
Business Profiles
Coverage in the US
Update frequency
Business registries
What is an OFAC screening tool?
An OFAC screening tool software checks the names of businesses – including associated people and countries – against US Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctions lists. It then reports whether each entity’s name appeared on one of those sanctions lists or not.
OFAC issues lists of entities engaged in activities counter to US national security and foreign policy interests. Any US citizen or business is legally forbidden from associating with entities on OFAC’s lists.
How the OFAC list search tool works
Step 1
Login to the Middesk dashboard and place an order on a new business.
Step 2
Enter the business’s name and address, along with (optionally) a list of people associated with the business, and then place the order.
Step 3
Select “Watchlists” to view the Consolidated OFAC Screening report.
Step 4
Review the report to determine if the business, or anyone associated with it, is on an OFAC sanctions list.
Information you can get with our OFAC search tool
Running a business verification search with Middesk can also find other pieces of information needed for compliance purposes.
Middesk Compliance Data Sources
Data You Can Access
What Do You Need to Know?
Watchlist hits & PEP screening
Is the business, its home country, or any of its associated people on one of OFAC’s sanctions lists or another US watchlist?
Depending on the specific list an entity matches against, there may be conditions on dealing with that entity, or association with it may be disallowed entirely.
People associated with a business
Am I aware of who truly owns the business I want to form a relationship with, and did the business provide the correct information regarding this?
Business industry classification (NAICS, SIC)
Am I aware of what kinds of products and services the business provides?
Business license
Is the business in good standing with all local, state, and federal regulatory boards?
Business documents
Can I see the business’s formation documents, such as Articles of Incorporation and Certificate of Good Standing, to verify the business is legitimate?
Business name, address, & phone number
Does the business’s basic registration information match across all required government and regulatory agency filings?
EIN / Business Tax ID
Is the business registered to file taxes with the IRS with a valid and unique ID number?
Liens & litigations
Does this business have any litigations or liens filed against them?
Bankruptcy data
Has this business filed for bankruptcy, and does that present a financial risk to my company?
Applications for an OFAC list search tool
OFAC sanctions restrictions have to be followed by all US businesses, regardless of which industry they’re in.
Fintechs
Many fintechs want to grow as quickly as possible, but that shouldn’t mean resorting to dealing with sanctioned entities. Having an automated OFAC sanctions list search tool allows fintechs to check whether the clients and partners they’re taking on are legitimate.
Insurance
Criminals can commit insurance fraud as part of other financial crimes, such as money laundering, terrorism financing, and WMD proliferation financing. A quick OFAC search using Middesk’s system will tell insurers who they shouldn’t deal with.
Commercial banking
A key step in preventing money laundering and other serious financial crimes is cutting off the means for criminals to move money around. By using an OFAC search tool, banks can quickly identify and block sanctioned individuals and businesses.
Lenders
Like banks, lenders also don’t want to be providing financial resources to known money launderers, terrorists, and other criminals. A quick OFAC lookup with Middesk’s tool will tell a lender if an applicant should be immediately denied.
Marketplace
Keep businesses being used as fronts for financial crime out of your commerce hub. Quickly check applicant businesses against OFAC’s lists to protect yourself and your marketplace’s consumers from unwittingly aiding criminals.
Payments platforms
Payment providers for marketplaces also want to make sure they aren’t being used as vehicles for money laundering, terrorist financing, and other financial crime. Rapid OFAC screening helps maintain trust between payment platforms, merchants, consumers, and marketplace managers.
Accelerated customer onboarding with the OFAC screening tool
Ensure your entities are US-sanctioned
Screen against all OFAC sanctions lists, not just the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list. If a business customer, its home country, or an associated person is sanctioned by the US in any way, you’ll know about it.
Get accurate, up-to-date information
Middesk retrieves data directly from OFAC’s official consolidated sanctions lists on a daily basis. So you can rest assured you’re getting fresh, accurate information to conduct KYB with.
Enhance risk assessment with all watchlists
Middesk covers not just OFAC’s lists, but also watchlists from the State Department and the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS). This helps you know not only which entities are illegal to deal with, but also which ones are high-risk and may have special conditions on associating with them.
Speed up business verification
Forget having to manually screen businesses and their associated people, one by one, through the OFAC website. Middesk’s OFAC tool allows you to check a business and its associated people all at once, against all of OFAC’s lists at once.
Integrate & build with our OFAC API or get started with a dashboard today
What makes Middesk’s OFAC sanctions list search tool different?
Screens all US watchlists
Middesk’s Business Verification isn’t just an OFAC SDN search tool. It also screens against all other OFAC sanctions lists, as well as watchlists from the State Department and the BIS.
Consistent data freshness
Middesk refreshes its US watchlist data daily, so you’ll be updated at the start of each day as to whether a business (or any of its associated people) has been added to a watchlist.
Customized screening parameters
Middesk offers screening options to reduce false positives, such as fuzzy matching, date of birth filtering, and screening against specific watchlists or agencies.
Retrieve other KYB information
In addition to hits on OFAC sanctions lists and other US watchlists, Middesk’s Business Verification can check other potential risk factors: industry classifications, litigations, bankruptcies, etc.
How Radius Bank finds more hours in the day with Middesk
“Every minute we’re able to save in processing loans is a minute faster than a small business will have access to the capital they need. With Middesk, what ordinarily would have taken us hours to do is now taking us minutes. We take pride in partnering with technology companies that help us serve our customers better.”
How Novo redefines its KYB process with Middesk’s verification product
“Middesk's market-leading methods challenge the established legacy approach to verification. Their product has unlocked significant efficiency, enhancing the onboarding experience for small businesses to access Novo. Middesk’s ground-up approach to product development played an integral part in increasing confidence in KYB, both internally and with partners.”
Driving team efficiency and performance with Clearco
“Middesk's Lien Search product has allowed my team to focus on value-add activities like making deals rather than tedious tasks like sifting through UCC portals. My team is faster and happier with getting business owners the capital they need to grow their businesses.”
Leveling up Plaid’s onboarding process with seamless KYB
“When a customer signs up for Plaid, they want to start building on our APIs right away. Middesk has been a critical partner enabling us to quickly and seamlessly onboard new customers.”
Frequently Asked Questions about OFAC list search tools
OFAC’s lists name people, businesses, and countries that have posed (or are posing) serious threats to US national security, foreign relations, or economic policy. So in addition to being high-risk, these entities have conditions or even prohibitions on dealing with them. If you fail to comply with these restrictions, you can face criminal penalties and other consequences.
Middesk retrieves consolidated OFAC sanctions list data directly from the US Department of the Treasury, which oversees the Office of Foreign Assets Control. It also retrieves other watchlist data from the State Department and the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS).
You can, but there are some major downsides to doing things this way. One is that you can only run one search at a time, which is highly inefficient if you have a large number of business customers (not to mention having to search for their associated people as well).
Another is that OFAC’s tool has limited support for varying name formats (e.g. alternate spellings, nicknames/aliases, abbreviations, contractions, and acronyms), so you may need to run the same search multiple times to ensure you get (or don’t get) a match. Again, this is overly time-consuming, especially if you need to do this for hundreds (or potentially thousands) of entities.
Once you are set up with Middesk, simply log into the dashboard and place a Verify order. Then enter the business’s name and address, along with (optionally) a list of people associated with the business, run the search, and select the Consolidated OFAC Screening report. It’s a simple process that should take less than a minute!
Automated & accurate OFAC search data whenever you need it
Get started with our OFAC list search tool today
