SAR (Suspicious Activity Report)
A Suspicious Activity Report is the formal report a regulated firm, through its MLRO, files with the national financial intelligence unit when it suspects a transaction or customer may involve money laundering or other financial crime. Filing is a legal obligation, and tipping off the customer is prohibited.
A high-risk operator is usually a reporting entity in its own right, and a firm that files no SARs at all can look as suspicious to a regulator as one that files too many. Having a working SAR process in place is part of the AML maturity a bank checks before it will onboard you.
Anti-Money Laundering is the framework of laws, controls, and monitoring a regulated firm must run to detect and prevent the movement of illicit funds.
A Money Laundering Reporting Officer is the named individual a regulated firm appoints to oversee its AML programme and file suspicious activity reports with the national financial intelligence unit.
Adverse media screening is the checking of a customer, owner, or counterparty against negative news sources: reports of fraud, regulatory action, sanctions, or criminal association.
Sanctions screening is the checking of customers, counterparties, and transactions against government and international sanctions lists, such as those maintained by the UN, EU, OFAC, and the UK.