Belize’s Central Bank adopts SWIFT Sanctions Screening

A move that further strengthens compliance programs across the Latin American region 

SWIFT announces today that the Central Bank of Belize has adopted its Sanctions Screening solution to combat financial crime. The industry utility enables banks to take a proactive approach in building greater trust with the international financial community and mitigating de-risking.

Central Bank of Belize says, “The adoption of SWIFT’s Sanctions Screening further attests our commitment to prevent financial crime. Implementing the right compliance controls within an organization is not only a regulatory responsibility, but also a priority for global security.”

“We welcome Belize’s Central Bank decision to implement Sanctions Screening to further strengthen their financial crime compliance programme” says Juan Martínez, Managing Director Latin America and the Caribbean, SWIFT. “As compliance and cybersecurity challenges become increasingly sophisticated, we are committed to helping banks to ensure payments are secure and compliant as well as faster and more transparent. Through our growing financial crime compliance portfolio combined with SWIFT’s Customer Security Programme, and global payments innovation initiative, we are addressing these dimensions together in order to take correspondent banking to the next level.”

Since its launch in 2012, SWIFT’s Sanctions Screening service has been adopted by more than 650 customers in more than 140 countries, including entire banking communities. There are also 27 central banks using the service.

SWIFT is a global member owned cooperative and the world’s leading provider of secure financial messaging services.

We provide our community with a platform for messaging and standards for communicating, and we offer products and services to facilitate access and integration, identification, analysis and regulatory compliance.

Our messaging platform, products and services connect more than 11,000 banking and securities organisations, market infrastructures and corporate customers in more than 200 countries and territories. While SWIFT does not hold funds or manage accounts on behalf of customers, we enable our global community of users to communicate securely, exchanging standardised financial messages in a reliable way, thereby supporting global and local financial flows, as well as trade and commerce all around the world.

As their trusted provider, we relentlessly pursue operational excellence; we support our community in addressing cyber threats; and we continually seek ways to lower costs, reduce risks and eliminate operational inefficiencies. Our products and services support our community’s access and integration, business intelligence, reference data and financial crime compliance needs.

SWIFT also brings the financial community together – at global, regional and local levels – to shape market practice, define standards and debate issues of mutual interest or concern.

Headquartered in Belgium, SWIFT’s international governance and oversight reinforces the neutral, global character of its cooperative structure. SWIFT’s global office network ensures an active presence in all the major financial centres.

SWIFT’s financial crime compliance services portfolio

SWIFT’s Compliance Services unit manages a growing portfolio of financial crime compliance services in the areas of sanctions, Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML). The portfolio includes Sanctions Screening, Sanctions Testing and Name Screening solutions, Compliance Analytics and Payments Data Quality services, and The KYC Registry. For more information, visit www.swift.com/complianceservices

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