Risk screening solutions from providers such as LexisNexis, Thomson Reuters and LSEG play a central role in helping bank compliance teams verify customer identities and meet KYC and AML obligations.
These platforms underpin financial crime compliance (FCC) operations by drawing on proprietary global datasets designed to flag potential risk across customers, counterparties and transactions, said Workfusion.
However, compliance teams have long recognised a structural limitation within the market. No single data provider offers a complete view of global risk, forcing analysts to look beyond their primary screening tools. For years, this gap has been filled by manual web searches using engines such as Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo, with Google by far the most widely used. Despite this additional effort, FCC leaders still struggle to build a clear, comprehensive picture of individuals and entities that may expose their institutions to risk.
At first glance, it might seem logical that combining Google with traditional screening tools would solve the problem. In reality, it does not. Google indexes only an estimated 15–20% of publicly available online information, leaving significant gaps in coverage. What appears in search results is shaped by relevance scoring, user location and search history, all of which can limit visibility of critical information needed for AML, KYC and fraud investigations.
Search engine optimisation further distorts results. Organisations that invest heavily in SEO can push their narratives to the top of search rankings, while relevant but poorly optimised content is buried deep in results pages. This creates an uneven information landscape where material risk indicators may be effectively hidden from compliance teams.
Geography adds another layer of complexity. Google’s core products are unavailable in China and face restrictions or censorship in countries including Iran, North Korea, Russia, Serbia and Turkey. These blind spots mean that adverse media and regulatory signals in high-risk jurisdictions may never surface through standard searches, undermining the effectiveness of global risk assessments.
Beyond missing data, disinformation presents an even greater challenge. Commercial incentives can elevate inaccurate or state-influenced content. A 120-day study by The Brookings Institution examining COVID-19 and Xinjiang found that Chinese state media appeared in 21.5% of top results on Google News and Bing News. Similar dynamics exist globally, where powerful organisations can shape what information is amplified—or suppressed—online.
To address these weaknesses, leading banks are rethinking how they source and analyse FCC data. Rather than relying solely on search engines or standalone screening tools, they are working with providers that combine deep AML and KYC expertise with advanced technology. Large language models such as ChatGPT, Anthropic and Gemini can supplement traditional searches, but only when guided by carefully designed prompts and workflows built by subject matter experts.
An analyst cannot simply prompt an LLM with “give me negative news on Person X.” Effective searches must operate across dozens of languages and account for cultural, legal and reporting nuances. Jurisdictions like Jersey or Guernsey, for example, generate extensive local financial reporting that standard English-language searches often miss. Similarly, expertly designed search strings in Arabic, Cyrillic or Mandarin deliver far more accurate results than automated translation alone.
Leading banks are already seeing the benefits of this approach. By combining richer data sources with expert-driven AI, they receive clearer answers faster. Instead of reviewing hundreds of articles, analysts are presented with synthesised conclusions supported by footnoted sources, allowing them to focus on decision-making rather than manual review. As one system output puts it, “here is all the relevant information, and here is the final answer.” In an environment of growing regulatory scrutiny, better data is becoming a defining advantage in financial crime compliance.
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