AML software: A 2025 comparison guide

Weak AML systems are costing firms. Recent penalties include £16 million at Metro Bank for failing to manage money laundering risks, and £29 million at Starling Bank for “shockingly poor” AML controls. Private banks and wealth management firms aren’t exempt either. Earlier this year, Morgan Stanley was fined $1.1M for money laundering failings linked to corruption. 

The current AML approach is fragmented, human-dependent, and spread across multiple systems. Too often, AML checks are seen as box-ticking exercises without gaining real customer insight. On top of that, these checks rely on outdated screening tools. We’ve seen cases where screenings come back clean, but broader research uncovers serious red flags in the public domain. Without richer contextual data on customers, firms risk letting the wrong people through the door.

A firm’s AML process is only as strong as the red flags it can detect. To do this effectively, firms need more sophisticated AML software. So we’ve created this guide to help you choose the right solution.

Dynamic AML due diligence: Xapien

Xapien is an AI-powered research and due diligence tool that provides a broad lens for client risk assessments. It begins by screening clients against AML databases to ensure they aren’t politically exposed, sanctioned, or on a watchlist. Its UBO feature maps out every shareholder and their percentage, using its ability to cross-reference structured and unstructured data. This means a corporate record can be checked against a media article to ensure that UBO data is accurate.

Xapien puts screening data into context by doing an open-source web search. It runs a comprehensive search using a subject’s full name, capturing aliases and “also known as” names—something that usually requires time-consuming manual checks. Verifying identities by cross-referencing birthdates and other details is a common challenge, but Xapien’s advanced machine learning does this automatically. It also surfaces links to high-risk countries or geopolitically sensitive regions, which can signal a greater risk of corruption or money laundering,

A subject’s wider network plays a crucial role in risk assessment. Xapien maps these relationships using publicly available information, spotting associates linked to criminal organisations or past fraud. It also uncovers reports of crimes, controversies, and legal issues, detailing both financial and non-financial offences, convictions, and allegations. By providing context, Xapien helps analysts identify unusual behaviour patterns that may signal future risk.

Xapien also surfaces information on the subject’s net worth and source of wealth. This helps identify any red flags related to financial crime, such as wealth that might have been obtained through illegal means. Investigating the origins of their wealth ensures that it aligns with the client’s profile and was legally acquired. Assessing the subject’s assets is also necessary to verify their legitimacy and sources, especially to check they aren’t hidden or linked to sanctioned activities.

Access data on 520 million entities globally: Moody’s Orbis

Moody’s Orbis is best known for providing a comprehensive view of corporate ownership structures, beneficial owners, and politically exposed persons (PEPs), offering valuable insights into complex organisational hierarchies. Orbis integrates data from over 170 providers, combining it into a unified and standardised dataset to ensure comprehensive coverage and reliability.

To maintain consistency and accuracy, Orbis assigns unique identifiers to entities. This facilitates easy tracking and comparison across different datasets. Orbis connects key people within or related to companies, including directors, auditors, and senior managers, so compliance teams can assess potential risks linked to individuals or their networks. The platform identifies and traces beneficial ownership, revealing the true controllers of companies.

Screening powered by technology and human expertise: LSEG World-Check

World-Check offers a robust, structured database to screen for financial crimes, including money laundering and terrorist financing. The platform enhances its data through several features that link and cross-reference various identifiers, ensuring thorough risk assessments. It includes Politically Exposed Persons (PEP) classification, linking individuals to their positions and relationships with high-risk entities.

World-Check uses a combination of human expertise and automated technology to de-duplicate and verify data, providing clean, actionable intelligence. Additionally, it offers tools like identity verification, passport checks, and the ability to filter updates based on criticality, streamlining the monitoring process

Real-time AML risk monitoring: ComplyAdvantage

ComplyAdvantage is a real-time risk monitoring platform designed to help compliance teams perform ongoing anti-money laundering (AML) checks. The platform continuously updates its database, adding thousands of risk events from millions of data points every day, ensuring users stay informed about emerging threats.

Its enhanced Politically Exposed Persons (PEP) profiles provide detailed insights into individuals, their relatives, and close associates, helping users identify potential risks from indirect relationships. ComplyAdvantage also includes comprehensive fraud risk data, enabling users to monitor for fraudulent activities as part of their AML strategy.

The platform specialises in automating KYC processes by aggregating data from global public sources such as corporate registries, UBO databases, PEP and sanctions lists, and adverse media. It uses these data points to construct centralised CDI profiles. The platform applies normalisation and conflict resolution to standardise data. This ensures that risk assessments are based on consistent and accurate information.

Encompass provides live updates and a full audit trail of all data accessed, making it easier for compliance teams to stay audit-ready and meet regulatory obligations. It also enables ongoing monitoring and updates of KYC profiles, reducing the need for periodic reviews and ensuring compliance is maintained dynamically over time.

End-to-end AML screening: Dow Jones Risk & Compliance

Dow Jones Risk & Compliance offers a robust platform designed to help compliance teams manage risks associated with anti-money laundering (AML), sanctions, and financial crime. The solution features comprehensive global databases, including politically exposed persons (PEPs), sanctions, adverse media, and beneficial ownership data, all curated by a team of multilingual researchers to ensure coverage of global regulatory standards and cultural nuances.

 With features like real-time payment screening and transaction monitoring, the platform ensures that transactions are cross-checked instantly against sanctions lists, PEPs, and other risk indicators. Daily updates to risk data ensure that users always have access to the latest information on financial crime risks.

ComplyAdvantage is also one of Xapien’s trusted screening data providers.

Global negative news monitoring: Dow Jones Factiva

Dow Jones Factiva is a business intelligence platform designed to help compliance teams streamline their information-gathering processes. It provides access to a broad repository of content from a range of authoritative outlets, including newspapers, magazines, trade journals, newswires, and broadcast transcripts. It aggregates information from reputable global and local sources, offering access to over 33,000 publications in multiple languages. These sources are updated in real-time, providing compliance professionals with timely insights into potential reputational issues.

Factiva helps compliance teams mitigate various types of risks, including reputational risks by tracking adverse media and uncovering negative news about clients. Its powerful search parameters allows users to filter content by specific companies, topics, or industries. It also looks for regulatory risks by flagging issues tied to anti-bribery, corruption, and money laundering. The platform enables early detection of potential exposure to political risks, sanctions, and connections to high-risk entities or individuals. Additionally, Factiva aids in identifying environmental, social, and governance (ESG) risks, ensuring businesses stay ahead of these nuanced factors.

One-stop sanctions, PEPs and adverse media solution: LexisNexis® WorldComplianceTM

LexisNexis® WorldComplianceTM offers a comprehensive due diligence and compliance tool that helps compliance teams screen individuals and entities to detect potential risks, including those related to financial crime, sanctions violations, and anti-money laundering (AML). The tool features

over 5 million high-risk profiles, spanning categories such as sanctions lists, politically exposed persons (PEPs), state-owned enterprises, adverse media, and enforcement actions. It employs advanced data matching and linking technologies to connect disparate data points and identify complex relationships between individuals, companies, and associated entities

LexisNexis® WorldComplianceTM Data delivers customised access to 6 million global risk profiles covering individuals, organisations, businesses and vessels from across 240 countries and territories.

It’s supported by a worldwide network of over 450 research experts and analysts. The expansive risk database includes one of the most comprehensive and up-to-date politically exposed persons lists, aggregated information from over 100 global sanctions lists, details of enforcements sourced from over 1,600 government websites and an extensive proprietary database of adverse media profiles compiled from over 30,000 news sources.

Automate IDV, AML and Source of Funds checks: Thirdfort

Thirdfort provides an automated solution for identity verification (IDV) and anti-money laundering (AML) compliance checks, designed to streamline and secure the client onboarding process. Initially created for real estate firms, Thirdfort has expanded across industries, leveraging open banking, document verification, and facial recognition technology. The platform enables compliance teams to quickly verify clients’ identities remotely, reducing the need for manual checks. This app-based solution facilitates secure and efficient compliance, ensuring that firms can meet regulatory requirements while minimising fraud risks.

It provides a comprehensive suite of compliance tools to protect firms from fraud while streamlining the client verification process. Their ID verification service ensures businesses can quickly and securely authenticate client identities. The platform also offers Source of Funds verification, using Open Banking technology to provide instant access to six months’ worth of bank statements. For enhanced risk management, Thirdfort screens clients against PEPs and sanctions lists by tapping into thousands of live data sources. Additionally, their know-your-business feature delivers reliable, beneficial ownership reports, helping businesses get a complete view of their clients.

Automate and consolidate your client onboarding workflows: Intapp Intake

Intapp Intake is designed to streamline the client onboarding and risk assessment process, enabling law firms to efficiently capture critical information about new and recurring business. It offers features like dynamic, risk-based questionnaires, automated workflows, and integrated third-party data sources to ensure a comprehensive and quick risk analysis.

The system automates key tasks, such as the generation and management of engagement letters, aligning them with firm policies to mitigate risk and protect revenue. It also includes monitoring and alerting capabilities to automatically update client data and ensure compliance with ongoing due diligence. Additionally, Intapp Intake helps firms standardise and enforce engagement terms, providing consistency and visibility across the onboarding process, while integrating with existing systems to enhance operational efficiency and reduce risk.

Last thoughts

Each AML software mentioned in this guide helps build a contextual, dynamic picture of clients. This sharpens risk assessments while cutting both cost and time.

Compliance teams need more than structured databases to take a truly risk-based approach. They need access to publicly available information. Many tools meet basic regulatory requirements but lack deeper insights into a client’s reputation, behaviour, and associations.

That’s why Xapien was built. It goes beyond database hits to uncover what the world says about an individual or company. Traditional screening tools miss these rich online insights, but Xapien doesn’t.

Xapien integrates seamlessly with your existing tech stack—no overhaul required. It delivers the most accurate view of a client upfront, sparing your compliance team from piecing together fragmented data points.

Keen to see it in action? Book a demo with the team here.