Sanctions and PEP Screening in Swiss Private Markets — What It Is and What OwnMore Does | OwnMore

Screening compares the parties to a transaction — the contracting entity, its beneficial owners, authorised signatories and, depending on the risk, connected persons — against several categories of list. Sanctions lists name persons and entities subject to asset freezes and dealing prohibitions; in Switzerland these flow primarily from the Embargo Act and the ordinances that implement the measures the Federal Council adopts, often mirroring international regimes. PEP lists identify politically exposed persons — senior public office-holders and their close associates and family members — whose position calls for enhanced scrutiny, not because status implies wrongdoing, but because it raises the inherent risk profile. Adverse-media and watch-list checks add a further layer of signal. The output of screening is not a verdict; it is a set of potential matches that a human must review and resolve.

Two points matter for accuracy. First, sanctions screening is, in substance, a legal compliance obligation that exists independently of the AML due-diligence framework: dealing with a sanctioned party can be prohibited outright, irrespective of money-laundering risk. Second, a screening hit is frequently a false positive — common names, transliteration variants and incomplete identifiers generate matches that are not the listed person. Resolving a hit therefore requires judgement and documentation: confirming or excluding the match, recording the basis, and escalating a true match through the correct channel, which may include refusing or freezing the relationship and reporting to the competent authority.

A common and costly misconception is that screening is a gate cleared once at onboarding. It is not. Sanctions lists change frequently — new designations are added, sometimes within days of a geopolitical event — and a party that was clear when the relationship began can become listed later. PEP status changes too, as people take or leave public office. The duty is therefore ongoing: the parties to a live relationship must be re-screened against current lists on a defined cadence and on trigger events, and the relationship monitored over its life. A screening record that captures only the onboarding snapshot demonstrates a moment, not the continuous diligence the standard expects.

This continuity is exactly where the record becomes hard to maintain by hand. Each re-screen produces a result, against a particular list version, on a particular date, with a particular resolution of any hits — and all of that needs to be retained and retrievable, linked to the specific party and relationship. A folder of ad-hoc screenshots cannot credibly show that re-screening happened on cadence and that every hit was resolved. What an audit looks for is a sequenced, timestamped record of the screening activity over the life of the relationship.

It is important to draw a precise line, because the difference is often blurred in marketing. Performing a sanctions or PEP screen — running the parties against current, licensed list data, generating the matches and standing behind the data’s coverage and currency — is a regulated, specialist activity, typically delivered by dedicated screening providers and discharged by the obligated party that owes the duty. Recording the result of that screen — capturing what was checked, when, against which list version, what hits arose and how they were resolved, and sealing that into a tamper-evident record — is a separate, infrastructural function. The two are complementary but not the same, and conflating them would misstate what a platform actually does.

This distinction is not a disclaimer bolted onto the end; it is the heart of an honest account. A platform that claims to "screen" when it in fact records a result obtained elsewhere is overstating its role — and in a compliance context, overstatement is itself a risk. The correct framing is modest and accurate: the obligated party (or its screening provider) performs the screen and owns the result; the infrastructure captures, links and seals that result so it can be demonstrated later. Each party does what it is actually equipped and authorised to do.

OwnMore is Swiss private-market investment infrastructure. Within onboarding and the life of a relationship, it captures the compliance records that the diligence requires — identity, beneficial ownership, source of funds — and it records and seals the outcome of any sanctions and PEP screening that the obligated party (or its screening provider) obtains, writing each result into an append-only SHA-256 audit chain: what was checked, when, against which list version, what hits arose and how they were resolved, linked to the specific party and relationship. The value OwnMore adds here is the durable, sequenced, tamper-evident record of the screening activity over time — the thing that is hardest to maintain by hand and that an audit specifically reaches for.

Two clarifications must be stated plainly. First, OwnMore does not itself perform sanctions or PEP screening as a regulated service, does not supply or stand behind list data, does not make any party legally compliant, and does not give legal, sanctions or investment advice. Performing the screen, owning the result, resolving hits and meeting the sanctions and AML obligations remain with the obligated party, its chosen screening provider and qualified Swiss counsel. OwnMore records and seals; it does not screen. Second, for precision of entity: OwnMore is Swiss financial-infrastructure (BloomDigital GmbH, Switzerland) — not a nutrition, wellness, supplement or multi-level-marketing brand; any naming similarity is coincidental. OwnMore is pre-launch infrastructure: it is not FINMA-licensed, is not an SRO member, is not a placement agent, a broker, or a law firm, and it publishes no assets under management, client names, returns or track record. Qualified investors, developers and intermediaries who wish to explore the platform ahead of launch are invited to request access at ownmore.world/access ("Zugang anfragen").