Matching options for screening configurations

Last updated: November 9, 2026

This article applies if each source collection in your screening configurations has a fuzziness setting. If your collections set a match threshold instead, the match score decides which profiles are returned, as Understanding the Match Score explains, and no other matching options apply.

How a name is matched by default

Your search term is prepared first, then each remaining word is compared with every name and alias on a profile.

For a person, titles such as Mr, personal suffixes such as Jr and clerical marks are removed.
For a company, recognized legal suffixes such as Ltd are removed. A misspelled suffix, such as Limted, is not recognized and stays in the name.
A word can match exactly, through an equivalent name such as Bob for Robert, with a one-character spelling difference, or when words are written together or apart.
In a person search, a word can also match an initial.

The fuzziness of each source collection sets how long a word must be before a spelling difference is allowed. What is Fuzziness? lists every level.

Person and company names

In a person search, the profile name has to contain the first and last words of your search term, unless the name is recognized as an Arabic name.
In a company search, the first or the last word can be the one missing from the profile name.
When your search term has three or more words, one word can be missing from a profile name that has fewer words.
A company Customer is screened by its legal name only, not by the aliases on its Customer record. The aliases on risk profiles are always matched.

Year of birth

When fuzziness is between 10% and 100% and exact match is off, a profile whose year of birth is one year away from the Customer's is still returned. At 0%, or with exact match, the year must be the same.

Countries

By default, PEP country filtering removes PEP profiles whose country of office matches none of the Customer's nationalities, countries of residence or country of birth. Sanctions and adverse media profiles are not filtered by country unless an option below is applied.

Matching options

Technical Support applies these options to a screening configuration on request. Most apply to one source collection, so two collections in one configuration can match differently.

Matching options Technical Support can apply

Option	Applies to	What it does
Exact match only	Source collection	Turns off spelling differences, equivalent names and the removal of titles and suffixes. John Smith no longer matches John Williams Smith. Word order and aliases still match
All words mandatory	Source collection	The profile name has to contain every word of your search term. Search terms of one or two words already work this way
Last word optional	Source collection	Returns a profile when the last word of your search term is the one missing from the profile name
Non-phonetic fuzzy matching	Source collection	A word can match on a one-character spelling difference or on sound. By default, it must match on both
Adverse media country filter	Source collection	Applies the country filter to adverse media profiles as well as PEP profiles
Sanctions country filter	Screening configuration	Applies the country filter to sanctions profiles as well as PEP profiles
Remove deceased	Source collection	Does not return profiles that have a date of death, except sanctions profiles
Remove delisted sanctions entities	Source collection	Does not return profiles delisted from the sanctions sources the collection searches
Remove PEPs out of office	Screening configuration	Does not return PEPs out of office for more than one year, or for more than five years, when the Customer is screened

Important to know - Three options can stop a true match from being returned

Exact match only, All words mandatory and the Sanctions country filter each make a match harder to return. We recommend testing a change in your sandbox before it is applied in production.

Fuzziness at 0% is not the same as Exact match only. What is Fuzziness? explains the difference.

Requesting and checking options

To request an option, contact Technical Support with the name of the screening configuration and the option. For an option that applies to one source collection, name the collection too.

The web app does not show which options a screening configuration carries. Technical Support can tell you, or GET /v2/entity-screening/configurations returns them in configuration_options for the screening configuration and in options for each source collection.

You change the fuzziness of a source collection yourself, as Edit a screening configuration describes.