Effective Adverse Media Screening for AML Compliance

Bad actors often leave behind a trail of negative news. Effective adverse media screening helps you find it before they gain access to your platform or services.

By flagging links to financial crime, fraud, or other high-risk behavior, these screenings support compliance with regulations like Know Your Customer (KYC) and Know Your Business (KYB). They also provide valuable context for making informed risk decisions.

In this guide, we break down what adverse media screening is, why it matters, and how to do it effectively. You'll also learn common challenges and best practices to strengthen your approach.

What is adverse media?

Adverse media is any negative information or unfavorable news that has been reported about an individual, business, or other entity. For this reason, it’s also sometimes simply called negative news. These negative mentions can be very informative to your risk assessment of both new and existing customers, as they may indicate a history or pattern of illegal or otherwise risk activity.

Examples of adverse media may include things like news reports detailing events like:

An individual engaged in check writing fraud, which may indicate a higher risk that they will be unable to pay their bills in the future
An individual arrested for money laundering, embezzlement, corruption, terrorist financing, identity theft, or other crimes, indicating a higher risk that they may engage in such crimes in the future
A company misrepresented itself in order to attract customers but was then unable to deliver on its promises, which may indicate a higher risk of misrepresentation fraud

What is adverse media screening?

Adverse media screening, also called negative news screening, is the process of searching for negative information about a person or business you intend to work with.

Adverse media sources include traditional news outlets (both in print and online), TV, and radio. News may also come from non-traditional information sources such as websites, blogs, and social media.

The primary purpose of adverse media screening is to reveal a person’s historic or ongoing involvement in criminal activities. Common adverse media examples include reports of money laundering, fraud, or the financing of terrorism. The screening process can also reveal if someone is included on a sanctions list or watchlist, has political exposure, or carries another form of risk that must be taken into consideration before you do business with them.

Keep learning: What is a politically exposed person (PEP)?

Why is it important to perform information screening for adverse media?

Regularly completing thorough adverse media checks is an effective way to reduce your company’s reputational and fraud risk.

Simply put, working with a person or business that’s known (or suspected) to be involved in some kind of illegal activity can be harmful to a company’s reputation and increase their vulnerability to potentially bad actors. Conducting an adverse media screening on any potential new customer gives you the opportunity to uncover information that may indicate such a criminal history, ultimately allowing for a more thorough and comprehensive risk assessment.

Financial institutions and other regulated organizations are required to:

Follow Anti-Money Laundering compliance procedures
Conduct ongoing customer due diligence (CDD).

According to the Customer Due Diligence (CDD) Rule, created by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FINCEN) in 2018, these businesses must monitor and verify each customer throughout their relationship, especially during onboarding.

This means they must always be on the lookout for news that contains adverse information about their existing or potential customers — and when it arises, they must be prepared to make a decision on whether it presents enough risk to end the relationship.

Common adverse media monitoring challenges

Adverse media screenings can be a powerful risk mitigation tool, but conducting them can sometimes come with challenges. Some of the more common challenges associated with negative news screenings include:

Difficulty scaling

Adverse media monitoring has traditionally been a largely manual affair, with a human worker searching the internet or various news databases for mention of a customer’s name paired with other keywords. But as the number of news and information sources has grown exponentially in recent years, especially social media platforms, this manual method has proven very difficult to scale.

False positives

When an adverse media screening does return a hit, it can sometimes be difficult to know whether the source is referring to your customer or another person with the same name — what’s known as a false positive. False positives can be particularly high when you’re dealing with common names, which may require a different approach vs. less common names.

Evaluating sources

Not all media sources carry the same level of trust and authority. A news report found in a well-known newspaper or reported by a national broadcasting company will, for example, typically carry more authority than a blog post on a little-known personal website or social media profile. It’s not enough to simply look for mentions of your customers; you also need to determine if the outlet is reputable and trustworthy — which can again be difficult to do at scale.

Inaccessibility

An adverse media check is only as effective as it is comprehensive. When media is hidden behind a paywall, reported in a different language, or otherwise inaccessible, you may miss vital information that could otherwise inform the risk profile you build for each of your customers.

Record keeping

Depending on whether or not your company is subject to certain laws and regulations, you may also be required to keep records on each matching “hit” and whether the adverse news presents a risk to your business. This adds to the complexity and cost of your risk assessment processes, becoming one more thing to keep track of.

Continuous screening

These challenges would be significant even if adverse media screening was only recommended at the start of a new relationship. However, continuous screening for perpetual KYC is crucial to reducing risk. You should screen for any new negative information about all customers on a regular basis, giving extra attention to any accounts with suspicious activity.

Adverse media: AML regulations

Adverse media is like smoke before the fire in anti-money laundering (AML). It’s the early warning sign that something (or someone) might be risky. Regulations like the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) in the U.S., the EU’s AML directives, and FATF’s risk-based approach all expect you to monitor negative news about your customers. It’s not always spelled out in bold, but regulators make it clear: ignoring public red flags can put your compliance program at risk.

Take the EU’s 6th AML Directive, for example. It requires firms to identify potential criminal behavior early, even before formal charges. Adverse media helps do that. In the U.S., FinCEN’s guidelines emphasize using “all available information” to assess customer risk. That includes media reports, press coverage, and even public court documents.

The goal is to catch signs of things like fraud, drug trafficking, or corruption before they show up on a sanctions list. Think of it like reading the news with a compliance lens. If someone’s name comes up in a money laundering scandal, even if they haven’t been convicted, regulators expect you to notice and respond.

Adverse media screening requirements for AML compliance

If you’re building a solid AML program, adverse media screening is a step you shouldn’t skip. It’s not just about checking names when onboarding. You’ve got to keep checking because the news changes fast.

Imagine onboarding a client in January, and by March, they’re named in a bribery scandal overseas. Without ongoing screening, you’d miss that entirely. A strong program catches those changes.

Here’s what a good adverse media screening setup usually includes:

Screens both people and their companies or associates
Pulls from news, blogs, watchlists, and public records
Runs continuously, not just once
Flags high-risk keywords like “embezzlement” or “terrorist financing”
Uses tools that filter out irrelevant noise
Keeps records of what you found and what action you took
Revisits risk settings as threats evolve

It’s like setting up a radar system that alerts you when a storm is coming, before it hits.

Need some help making sure you’re not missing a step in AML compliance? Explore our AML compliance checklist, including step-by-step tips to make sure you’re staying compliant.

6 adverse media screening best practices

With the above challenges in mind, it’s important to think carefully about how you implement adverse media checks into your broader risk strategy.

These six adverse media screening best practices can help:

1. Use a risk-based approach to determine when screening is necessary

Although adverse media screenings can help you uncover risky information about your customers, you are not required to perform a screening for every single customer you work with. Instead, regulators like the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and FinCEN encourage you to take a risk-based approach to AML.

Under such an approach, you might only perform an adverse media screening for customers deemed to carry a higher risk of certain crimes, while letting lower risk customers onboard without a screening, which can help you manage both friction and cost during onboarding. Ultimately, which customers you do and don’t perform an adverse media screening on should be informed by your organization’s risk tolerance.

2. Tailor match requirements for your business needs

Knowing that false positives can be a problem during adverse media screening, you should think carefully about your match requirements when setting up your scans. These requirements are the logic that you establish to determine whether or not a variation on a name (such as an alias, abbreviation, pet name, or misspelling) will trigger a positive match.

More precise match requirements will likely result in fewer false positives — but this may come at the risk of missing a legitimate mention of your customer’s name. Less precise match requirements, meanwhile, have greater potential for false positives, but increase the likelihood that you’re catching every possible mention of your customer.

4. Screen as many sources as possible

The more media sources you include in your adverse media screening, the more you can be certain that the results of your check are accurate. With this in mind, it’s generally considered best practice to screen for mentions of your customers in as many sources as possible.

When evaluating adverse media screening tools or solutions, look for one that offers coverage among a wide variety of news sources. At a minimum, this should include national, state, and local newspapers and broadcast channels. Other potential sources include:

International news sources
Regulatory findings
Legal archives
Social media platforms
Niche online sources (such as industry blogs)

5. Maintain accurate customer data

Names aren’t the only piece of customer information you can use to conduct an adverse media screening. Other information can also be used to add context to your screenings and to help you further minimize false positives. A customer’s date of birth, for example, may help you differentiate between others with the same name, while their nationality can potentially help you tailor your search to the right jurisdictions.

Of course, customer information isn’t static; some components may change over time. If your customer changes their name, address, or other life changes, it can be more difficult for your adverse media screening to perform accurately. Routinely updating customer profiles gives you the opportunity to ensure that screenings are up to date.

6. Layer other screenings on top

Adverse media screenings make it possible to find negative mentions about your customers, but are not designed to uncover other types of risk. In order to determine whether or not a customer poses a risk to your business in other ways, you’ll need to pair adverse media screenings with other reports.

Which reports you leverage will depend on your business, but can include things like:

Watchlist screenings
Sanctions list screenings
Politically exposed persons (PEP) reports
Address lookups
Phone and email risk reports
Social media risk assessment solutions

Consider automation

If you are currently conducting adverse media checks manually, automating your processes can go far in helping you scale your efforts. Automation makes it possible to check millions of data sources for mentions of your customer nearly instantaneously freeing up your team to perform higher value tasks like reviewing false positives, assessing your customers for risk, and reviewing edge cases that need a human touch.

As a bonus, automation also makes it easier to implement continuous monitoring to ensure you stay on top of any new mentions as they appear.

How to automate adverse media checks

Adverse media checks no longer have to be a drawn-out, costly process that involves individual searches. In fact, there’s no need to manually review sources for negative or unfavorable information ever again.

With reports that pull from a wide range of information sources, adverse media screening can be part of a completely automated identity verification system. It fits in seamlessly with other CDD and EDD procedures and allows your team to quickly make decisions that reduce risk and don’t burden your customers.

While the exact steps to set up automated adverse media checks will depend on the solution you use, it’ll usually look something like this:

Determine how strict you need your match criteria to be
Determine which media sources you want included in your reports
Establish logic to automatically approve, decline, or mark customers for
review
Set up custom recurring screening cadences for ongoing monitoring

Use Persona’s adverse media screening tools to keep up with regulations

Adverse media screening is crucial for any company that wishes to avoid the ri

sks of working with those involved in illegal or suspicious activities. It’s particularly essential for businesses in regulated industries that may be required to implement adverse media checks and other KYC/AML procedures.

To protect your business and prevent unnecessary manual tasks that cost significant time and money, you need to invest in an automated KYC solution that includes adverse media screening tools.

Are you ready to supercharge your EDD process and automate media screening?

Persona’s automated global AML watchlist screening software screens 400+ million traditional news outlets and unstructured sources. After running a report to gather the data and reviewing any false positives for relevance, you can take action on any customers who carry an adverse media profile, thereby protecting your business from potentially dangerous relationships.

Guard against adverse media with Persona

Adverse media screening is crucial for any company that wishes to avoid the risks of working with those involved in illegal or suspicious activities. It’s particularly essential for businesses in regulated industries that may be required to implement adverse media checks and other KYC/AML procedures.

To protect your business and prevent unnecessary manual tasks that cost significant time and money, you need to invest in an automated KYC solution that includes adverse media screening.

Are you ready to supercharge your EDD process and automate media screening?

Persona’s automated adverse media solution screens 400+ million traditional news outlets and unstructured sources. After running a report to gather the data and reviewing any false positives for relevance, you can take action on any customers who carry an adverse media profile, thereby protecting your business from potentially dangerous relationships.

The data and information provided by Persona under the Adverse Media report does not constitute a “consumer report” as such term is defined under the Fair Credit Report Act (“FCRA”), and the information provided by Persona is not intended to be used in whole or in part as a factor in determining eligibility for credit, insurance, employment or another eligibility purpose that would qualify it as a consumer report under the FCRA.

Effective adverse media screening for AML compliance