There are over 100 pages of government regulations regarding countries as well as foreign nationals and other persons prohibited from doing business with any company, individual or agency of the United States. American companies who don't comply with these regulations, issued by the U. S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), can face serious fines and penalties: Up to one million dollars; up to 12 years in prison.

ResQNet.com can help you meet the challenges of dealing with a list of blocked persons that is over 40 pages long and a set of regulations that restricts not only direct dealings with sanctioned nations but also dealings with third party re-exporters of goods that originated in sanctioned nations. AT2's ResQ!, a Graphical User Interface package for host applications that requires no programming, can now link with a specially developed product add-on, the OFAC Sprite. This Sprite checks transaction records and documents for names of blocked persons and countries.

Government records show that over the past several years OFAC has imposed millions of dollars in civil penalties on banks. The majority of these fines originated as failures on the part of American banks to block illicit transfers where there were references to targeted countries or specially designated nationals. Because ResQ!'s OFAC Sprite automatically compares the full list of blocked persons and sanctioned countries with the payee fields and address lines for all transactions, it can significantly decrease the risk of carrying out an illegal transaction - it will not only find blocked parties in direct transactions, it will also weed out those that are "hidden" in circumstances of third party re-exportation. That is much more difficult with a manual review.

According to the United States Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), "The importance of establishing a compliance program and developing internal audit procedures should be obvious to every financial institution." And, in fact, should an OFAC investigation become necessary, the organization will "favorably consider a bank's business decision to use interdict software as well as other good faith manual and electronic compliance efforts in determining mitigation," as reported in OCC Issuance #1011 ("Foreign Assets Control Regulations for the Financial Community"). In addition, OFAC regulations require thorough record keeping and frequent audits -- both of which are facilitated by ResQ!'s OFAC sprite's automatic OFAC check logging.

In the past, mainframe "green screens" have made it difficult and tedious to check international transactions for blocked persons and sanctioned nations. However, ResQ! lets you customize the screens containing payee fields by adding the OFAC Sprite. Afterward, each payee in a transaction will automatically be compared to a local copy of the official OFAC database. And ResQ! requires absolutely no programming, scripting, or alteration of the underlying application. The entire consultation and installation process can be carried out quickly, sometimes in just a few weeks. This includes the time necessary to identify the screens and fields that need active monitoring and review. So not only will you save programming resources, you will improve your OFAC compliance program, possibly saving your institution millions.