Sanctions screening is becoming more demanding with each passing year. Watchlists shift overnight, geopolitical tensions trigger rapid updates, and alert volumes continue to surge. Yet regulators are no longer satisfied with evidence that a search was performed.
They now expect institutions to demonstrate that their decisions are consistent, explainable and defensible. For compliance teams operating under static budgets, this creates a difficult balancing act: move faster, reduce risk and deliver clearer rationale, all without expanding headcount or resources.
The newly released 2026 Sanctions Screening Trends Report by Alessa offers insight into how compliance professionals are navigating this evolving landscape. Drawing directly on conversations with practitioners, the report highlights the day-to-day pressures facing sanctions teams and the operational friction points that are slowing progress.
One of the clearest shifts identified is a move away from simple coverage towards measurable quality. In previous years, screening programmes were judged largely on whether they captured potential matches across relevant sanctions lists. Today, the focus is increasingly on precision.
Compliance leaders are prioritising improved match accuracy, reducing false positives and accelerating investigation turnaround times. The goal is not just to screen broadly, but to screen intelligently, with fewer unnecessary alerts and faster resolution of genuine risks.
False positives remain a central challenge. High alert volumes, combined with complex ownership structures and layered corporate hierarchies, are creating significant investigative burdens. Ultimate beneficial ownership analysis in particular continues to introduce complexity, especially when dealing with opaque cross-border entities. These factors are contributing to persistent backlogs and, in some cases, analyst fatigue and burnout. The report suggests that without targeted optimisation, many programmes risk being overwhelmed by operational drag rather than strategic risk management.
Data governance has emerged as a frontline control rather than a back-office function. As institutions explore greater use of automation and AI-driven tools in sanctions screening, the quality, structure and traceability of underlying data has become critical.
Poorly governed data undermines model performance and weakens audit defensibility. Conversely, robust governance frameworks are enabling institutions to adopt more advanced technologies with confidence, ensuring that screening outputs can be clearly explained to regulators.
Despite growing regulatory scrutiny, budgets are largely flat. Compliance functions are being asked to deliver more sophisticated controls without corresponding financial expansion. This reality is driving a focus on smarter optimisation rather than wholesale system overhauls. Many organisations are refining workflows, recalibrating screening thresholds and reassessing vendor performance in order to extract greater efficiency from existing infrastructure.
Confidence levels across the industry are mixed. Some teams feel their frameworks are resilient and adaptable, while others question whether their current approach would withstand a detailed regulatory review. Much depends on the maturity of governance controls, investigative processes and documentation standards.
The 2026 Sanctions Screening Trends Report provides a detailed examination of these dynamics and outlines how leading organisations are adapting. For institutions looking to strengthen their sanctions screening programmes in the year ahead, the findings offer a practical roadmap grounded in real-world experience.
Download the whitepaper here to understand where your programme stands and identify areas for improvement before scrutiny intensifies further.
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