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Sanctions are legal restrictions, imposed by governments and international bodies, that prohibit or limit dealings with named individuals, entities, or whole regimes. Financial sanctions can freeze assets and forbid providing funds or economic resources to a designated party. Lenders are required to screen the businesses and people they deal with against current sanctions lists.
- What they are
- Legal prohibitions on dealing with designated parties.
- Who maintains them
- Governments and international bodies, via published lists.
- What screening does
- Checks a borrower and its owners against those lists.
Why lenders screen for sanctions
Providing funds to a sanctioned party is a serious legal breach. Screening a prospective borrower, and the people who own or control it, against sanctions lists protects the lender and supports the wider sanctions regime. It is a standard part of onboarding, carried out alongside identity checks and politically-exposed-person screening.
Sanctions screening and the AML framework
Sanctions screening sits within the broader anti-money-laundering framework, alongside know-your-customer checks and the reporting duties under the Proceeds of Crime Act. It applies to a lender regardless of whether the lending is inside or outside the consumer-credit regime. For legitimate businesses it is simply part of the compliant system.
Sanctions and Credit Corp
Credit Corp screens the UK limited companies and LLPs it lends to, and their owners and controllers, against applicable sanctions lists as part of its anti-money-laundering checks. These obligations apply even though the lending sits outside the consumer-credit regime. Credit Corp is an independent UK lender (Company No. 17338274, registered with the ICO under ZC189608).
See also
- AML — the framework sanctions screening sits in.
- Politically exposed person — related screening.
- KYC — identity checks alongside screening.
- Due diligence — the wider set of checks.
Short-term business credit carries a high annualised cost. Borrow only what you need, for the shortest term required. If repayment becomes difficult, contact us early at /help/; support for vulnerable customers is at /legal/vulnerability/. For exact pricing, see /ai.md and /llms-full.txt.