PEP & Adverse Media Screening Software
PEP and adverse media screening that flags the right people, sooner
Zyphe screens people and companies against politically exposed person, watchlist and adverse media data with fuzzy matching, scores every match from 0 to 100 and bands it Low, Medium, High or Critical, and shows the number of contributing sources behind each hit so a reviewer can see why it fired. Profiles are re-checked daily, the decision trail is one your MLRO can defend, and there is no central honeypot of customer PII.
What is PEP screening?
PEP screening checks a customer against lists of politically exposed persons, people entrusted with a prominent public function, together with their relatives and close associates, so that a firm can apply enhanced due diligence where corruption or bribery risk is elevated. It runs at onboarding and again on every list refresh, because a customer can become a PEP after the account is open.
Trusted by those who trust no one.
4.9/5 from 9 customer reviews
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“Zyphe has completely transformed how we handle KYC data, allowing us to seamlessly share identity information with other financial participants while ensuring that users retain full control over their personal data.”
Milo Guastamacchia · 5/5 Yooro CEO and Co-Founder -
“Zyphe has made a big difference in how we approach attendee verification and data security. With decentralized storage for greater privacy, AI-driven identity verification for global check-ins, and audit-ready KYC, we have managed to reduce how much PII we need to handle while having a better user experience. It is easier for us to comply with regulations like GDPR and CCPA.”
Kelvin Rolf · 5/5 Twotixx CEO and Co-Founder -
“As a non-custodial wallet, we require every user to complete KYC while also integrating with multiple regulated partners, each with their own compliance requirements. Zyphe gave us a centralized way to collect and manage user identity data while securely sharing it with our partners, significantly reducing friction throughout the onboarding journey.”
Gonzalo del Cerro · 5/5 Vesseo Head of Product -
“The KYB feature stands out with a good UI and a lot of information like UBO and financials. I also appreciate that their compliance features offset efforts from my compliance team, which is very helpful.”
Sam M. · 5/5 Executive, small business -
“I like the ease of use and the security that Zyphe provides. It has a clean user interface on both the admin and user side. The integrated one-click KYC feature makes the whole experience super fast. The initial setup was easy because they set up everything for me.”
Fausto D. · 5/5 Owner, mid-market business -
“The availability of the staff and the ease of integration.”
Alessandro R. · 5/5 CEO, small business -
“I use Zyphe's KYC service and agentic compliance service. My users can be verified in a seamless way, and we use their AI agents to support our compliance team. Zyphe was integrated in no time, just the time to open an account and install their SDK.”
Stefano D. · 5/5 CTO, small business -
“I think Zyphe is fantastic because of its user interface, which is really good when onboarding documentation. I also appreciate how it enables us to share KYC checks externally. And honestly, the support team is amazing.”
Ignacio P. · 4.5/5 Small business -
“I like that Zyphe provides an end-to-end solution for KYC, KYB, and AML case files, integrating seamlessly into our existing stack with documented audit trails for each decision. Additionally, I appreciate the excellent customer support that prompted us to switch from Onfido. The initial setup of Zyphe was super easy, which was a big plus.”
Gunja G. · 4.5/5 Senior Loan Processor, mid-market business
Global PEP coverage at scale
Global sanctions, Politically Exposed Persons, watchlist and adverse media lists
Risk score on every match, banded Low, Medium, High and Critical, with the contributing-source count shown
The frequency at which each profile is re-checked against refreshed lists, plus event-driven triggers
PEP and adverse media screening built for real-world review
Identify politically exposed persons and their networks, surface negative news before a designation exists, and keep every decision reviewable rather than merely assertable.
PEP identification
Screen customers against comprehensive PEP lists to identify politically exposed persons and apply the right level of due diligence.
Relatives and close associates
Surface the relatives and close associates connected to a PEP, where the real risk often sits.
Adverse media screening
Check people and companies against negative news, regulatory and court sources for links to financial crime, corruption or sanctions exposure, in the same pass as the PEP check.
Fuzzy matching and banded scoring
Name variants and transliterations are matched, and every hit carries a 0 to 100 score banded Low, Medium, High or Critical, so review effort follows risk.
Daily re-screening
Every profile is re-checked against updated lists every 24 hours and on event-driven triggers, so a change in PEP status or fresh reporting is caught early.
Source count on every match
Each hit shows how many independent sources contributed to it. One report repeated is not the same evidence as five reports confirmed, and the reviewer sees which it is.
PEP and adverse media screening in your existing workflow
Plug Zyphe into onboarding and monitoring, set your match thresholds and EDD triggers, and let the score and source count do the triage.
Plug screening into onboarding and monitoring via webhooks and APIs, and set match thresholds and enhanced due diligence triggers to your risk appetite.
Customers and companies are screened against PEP, watchlist and adverse media data with fuzzy matching; each match is scored 0 to 100, banded, and annotated with its contributing-source count.
Profiles are re-checked every 24 hours and on event-driven triggers, with updates delivered by webhook as PRODUCED, REFRESHED or MODERATED so your systems react without a periodic review.
Screen without becoming a honeypot
Verified identity data is encrypted, sharded and held in the customer's own vault, so you meet PEP and adverse media obligations without building a central store of customer PII that a breach could expose.
Where data is stored, what is retained, and the audit status: the security and trust pageAdverse media screening best practices
The screening engine is half of the control. The other half is the workflow around it: a risk taxonomy that says which categories and allegation statuses count, weighted sources, entity resolution before matching, a recorded disposition on every hit, and monitoring that reacts to new reporting rather than to a calendar. Our guide sets out the six-step workflow and how to bring the false positive rate down without lowering true-positive capture.
Read the adverse media screening guide →Better compliance in 190+ Countries
Banking Secrecy Act
Enforces strict record-keeping and reporting requirements for financial institutions to prevent money laundering and financial crimes in the United States.
Anti-money Laundering Act
Establishes measures and responsibilities for financial intermediaries in Switzerland to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing.
Proceeds of Crime
Canadian regulation requiring financial institutions to detect, prevent, and report suspicious transactions related to criminal proceeds.
Terrorist Financing Act
Legislation enforcing measures in Canada to detect, prevent, and report financial activities linked to terrorist financing.
Anti-money Laundering
Australian regulation mandating financial entities implement robust compliance measures to detect, prevent, and report money laundering activities.
Counter-Terrorism Financing Act
Australian law ensuring financial institutions identify, monitor, and report activities related to financing of terrorism to maintain national and global security.
Integrate in as little as 15 minutes
curl -X POST https://verify.zyphe.com/v1/login_sessions \
-H 'Authorization: Bearer <API_KEY>' \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-d '{"auth_type": "email"}'
Frequent Questions
PEP screening software checks your customers against lists of Politically Exposed Persons, individuals in prominent public positions who pose a higher risk of bribery or corruption, so you can apply enhanced due diligence. Zyphe screens at onboarding and re-checks every profile daily.
Adverse media screening software checks customers and companies against negative news, regulatory and court sources for links to financial crime, fraud, corruption or sanctions exposure, surfacing risk before a formal designation exists. Zyphe runs it in the same pass as PEP and sanctions screening, with fuzzy matching, a banded 0 to 100 score and a count of contributing sources on every match.
A PEP is someone entrusted with a prominent public function: heads of state, senior politicians, senior government, judicial or military officials, senior executives of state-owned enterprises, and important party officials, plus, for risk purposes, their relatives and close associates.
Every match receives a score from 0 to 100, banded Low, Medium, High or Critical, together with the number of independent sources that contributed to it. The score sets the review priority; the source count tells the reviewer how much corroboration sits behind the hit before they open it.
Zyphe surfaces the relatives and close associates (RCAs) connected to a PEP, because the financial-crime risk frequently flows through a PEP's network rather than the PEP directly.
A foreign PEP holds a prominent public function in another country; a domestic PEP holds one in your own. FATF treats foreign PEPs as always higher risk and requiring enhanced due diligence, while domestic PEPs and officials of international organisations are assessed on a risk-sensitive basis. Zyphe flags both and records which category drove the decision.
Under FATF Recommendation 12, enhanced due diligence is always required for foreign PEPs, and for domestic PEPs or officials of international organisations only where higher risk is identified. Where it applies it means senior management approval, reasonable measures to establish source of wealth and source of funds, and enhanced ongoing monitoring. Your national implementation controls the detail, and being a PEP is not grounds to refuse an account on its own.
AML & Sanctions Readiness Score
Evaluate sanctions screening, PEP coverage, transaction monitoring and SAR-readiness across your AML programme.Explore more Zyphe products
Sanctions screening
that catches matches, not just names
Sanctions and AML watchlist screening software: real-time checks on customers and payment counterparties against 100K+ global lists, an AML screening API, daily re-screening, and no central PII honeypot.
Learn more →Perpetual KYC
that never lets a profile go stale
Perpetual KYC that re-verifies and re-screens customers continuously: daily list checks, event-driven refresh and dynamic risk re-scoring, replacing periodic reviews, on a privacy-first architecture.
Learn more →Anti-Money Laundering
Screening and monitoring built for regulators
Sanctions, PEP, watchlist and adverse media screening with a banded score and the number of contributing sources, alongside a deterministic transaction monitoring engine that returns Allow, Review or Block.
Learn more →