Sanctions compliance has never been more complex, or more globally fragmented.

The United States continues to expand its use of secondary sanctions. The European Union enforces blocking statutes that limit compliance with certain U.S. rules. The UK and other jurisdictions have introduced their own designations and enforcement strategies. What was once a relatively aligned global approach has become a patchwork of overlapping, conflicting mandates.

For compliance teams, this divergence creates growing uncertainty and risk. To help illustrate how sanctions regimes have evolved over the past decade, we’ve created a simple interactive map showing where the U.S., EU, UK, and UN have aligned or diverged in their designations from 2013 to 2025.

While this post focuses on sanctions and the challenge it represents — making confident, real-time decisions in the face of regulatory complexity — is something Quantifind helps solve across the entire financial crime lifecycle. Quantifind helps clients navigate the complex sanctions landscape by using transparent AI within a wide range of compliance solutions, including Know Your Customer, Sanctions Compliance, Transaction Intelligence, Investigations, and Third-Party Risk Management. 

See the Sanctions Divergence Map

Explore where and when the world’s major sanctions regimes converged or fractured over time. Click through each year to see how regulatory alignment has shifted since 2013.

This map focuses on country-level designations, not individual sanctions. It gives compliance professionals a quick, visual sense of how geopolitical complexity translates into screening challenges. It also highlights why a one-size-fits-all approach no longer works.

Why Sanctions Diverge

To understand the fractured sanctions landscape, it helps to look at the types of sanctions regimes in play and how each can create divergent obligations.

  • Comprehensive sanctions apply to entire countries, like North Korea or Iran under U.S. law. These broadly prohibit transactions and demand immediate blocking and reporting.
  • Comprehensive sanctions apply to entire countries, like North Korea or Iran under U.S. law, broadly prohibiting transactions and requiring immediate blocking and reporting. Unlike most other jurisdictions, which focus primarily on list-based sanctions, the U.S. uses both extensive entity lists and country-level sanctions, adding further complexity for compliance teams.
  • Sectoral sanctions target specific industries such as finance or energy, common in the context of Russia. These require detailed screening logic around counterparties and ownership.
  • Activity-based sanctions respond to behaviors like cybercrime, election interference, or human rights violations, and may apply to both individuals and countries.
  • Secondary sanctions (unique to the U.S.) extend beyond borders, threatening penalties even for non-U.S. entities that engage with blacklisted actors.

When jurisdictions take different approaches — for example, when the U.S. designates a Russian bank but the EU does not — institutions face complex decisions around screening policy, risk tolerance, and legal exposure.

Divergence Creates Real Compliance Risk

This fragmentation introduces uncertainty at every level of the compliance process. What counts as a match? Which lists apply in which region? What happens when one regime’s sanctions contradict another’s?

Without a clear strategy, teams are left asking:

  • Are we screening against the right lists for each geography?
  • Are we over-screening and wasting valuable time?
  • Are we under-screening and missing risk?

And perhaps most importantly, are we confident in the decisions we’re making?

A More Strategic Approach to Sanctions Screening

Quantifind helps financial institutions adapt to this complexity with precise, policy-aligned screening that reflects the nuances of global regulation. Here’s how:

Smarter Entity Resolution, Driven by Name Science

Effective sanctions screening depends on knowing exactly who you’re screening. The problem? The same person or organization can appear under different names — across OFAC, EU, UN, and UK lists, as well as within your own systems.

Quantifind solves this with AI-powered entity resolution built on proprietary Name Science. It handles multilingual variations, predicts likely name patterns, scores name rarity, and pulls in metadata to boost match confidence.

The result: cleaner data, fewer false positives (often reduced by 70% or more), and alerts that actually matter, not duplicates that waste time.

Jurisdiction-Specific Screening That Reflects Your Real Risk

Rather than forcing a universal rulebook, Quantifind enables tailored configurations. You can apply different lists and risk logic by geography, business line, or policy decision. For example:

  • Use OFAC and EU lists for global screening
  • Add OFSI’s Russia-specific designations for UK branches
  • Exclude U.S. secondary sanctions where legally prohibited

This flexibility ensures compliance without overreach, and it extends well beyond the scope of sanctions. Think of Quantifind as your risk intelligence advisor: we provide the tools, data, and models, but you set the strategy. You decide how to tune risk settings to fit your policies, markets, and risk appetite.

Granular Filtering for Real-Time and Batch Workflows

Whether you’re screening a single entity via API or processing millions of records in batch, Quantifind allows teams to define what gets flagged:

  • Filter by list type, such as OFAC or UN
  • Flag based on risk type, such as PEPs, tax evasion, or shell entities
  • Apply filters by transaction type or jurisdiction

This fine-tuned control reduces noise and improves efficiency.

Dynamic Monitoring That Adapts by Region and Risk

Compliance isn’t static. Quantifind supports always-on, configurable monitoring so you can:

  • Screen high-risk geographies more frequently
  • Tailor frequency and source lists by region
  • Stay aligned with evolving regulatory expectations

Seamless Integration Into Your Environment

Quantifind is designed for flexibility and speed. Whether used via API, as a standalone tool, or embedded in your case management system, our platform fits into existing workflows with ease.

Behind the scenes:

  • Data is normalized and enriched
  • AI screening runs against defined sources
  • Only relevant, high-confidence alerts are generated
  • Case actions are logged and auditable

Focus Where It Counts

Sanctions regimes will continue to evolve and diverge. Quantifind gives your team the tools to navigate that divergence with confidence.

By delivering explainable results, fewer false positives, and risk-aligned decisions, we help institutions:

  • Stay compliant across jurisdictions
  • Reduce workload and review time
  • Build transparency into every step of the process

Want to see how this approach works across your full compliance stack, from KYC to Transaction Monitoring to Third Party Risk? Let’s talk.

 

Sanctions Data Sources: OFAC, EU Sanctions Map, UK OFSI, UN Security Council.