A compliance officer at a desk by a window, reading a document.

Sanctions and PEP screening for trust companies and registered agents.

Watchtower is the screening engine used by trust companies and registered agents worldwide. Plans start at $195 a month.

WHAT IT DOES

Watchtower screens every party on your books every month.


  1. You enter the people and entities you act for, with the date of birth and nationality of each. Watchtower compares them against the government sanctions lists and a roster of holders of public office on the day you add them and again every month.

  2. You receive a certificate for each party that states the date, the sources and the result. You also receive a monthly report of the whole run for your file and your regulator.

  3. Possible matches go to a review queue where your compliance officer records the decision. A decision that a match is a different person appears on later certificates.

Two colleagues at a table looking over a client file together.
RESULTS

Each result is Clear, Review or Match.


Clear means no list returned a match. Review means a name matched and your compliance officer should look at it. Match means the name and the year of birth both matched.

The first page of a sample monthly screening report: counts for sanctions and PEP, and a table of parties with a result for each.
A sample screening certificate: the party's name, the sources screened against, a sanctions result and a PEP result, and the attestation.
PRICING

Choose a plan by the number of parties you monitor.

Starter

$195a month
$1,950 a year
up to 500 parties

Starter covers up to 500 parties for $195 a month or $1,950 a year.

Institution

$795a month
$7,950 a year
up to 10,000 parties

Institution covers up to 10,000 parties for $795 a month or $7,950 a year.

Single check

$3

A single check of one name costs $3 and comes with a certificate.

A yearly subscription gives you twelve months for the price of ten. A monthly subscription ends on thirty days' notice. Prices are in United States dollars.

Four people at a boardroom table, passing documents under a brass lamp.
A pair of hands placing a printed sheet into a file folder.
SOURCES

Watchtower screens against the globally recognized sanctions lists and a roster of public office holders.


They include the OFAC Specially Designated Nationals and Consolidated lists, the United Nations Security Council Consolidated list, the European Union Consolidated list, the United Kingdom Sanctions List and the Belize Financial Intelligence Unit Consolidated list.

The roster holds about 47,000 current and former holders of public office, including the United States and Canada, and extends to additional countries as subscribers request them.

Every certificate names the lists it was run against.

DATA PROTECTION

Watchtower protects your client list at every step.


Encrypted at rest
Every name, date of birth, nationality and file reference you enter is encrypted with AES-256 before it is written to the database. The database is then encrypted a second time by its host.
Independent security review
Watchtower works with Scytalex LLC, the world leader in security for high-value data. Scytalex regularly audits our security practices and helps harden the service.
Encrypted in transit
Every connection to Watchtower is encrypted, and browsers are instructed to refuse an unencrypted one.
Sign-in without passwords
Users sign in with a passkey held on their own device and confirmed by fingerprint, face or device PIN. Watchtower stores no passwords, which removes the most common way accounts are stolen. A session ends after thirty minutes without activity.
Controlled access
Each person has an individual account, and only an administrator at your firm can invite another user. Access by Lighthouse staff is limited to those who need it to run the service.
A record of activity
Watchtower logs every sign-in, every failed sign-in, every import, every change to a party record and every document download. Your administrators can read that log.
Screening stays inside Watchtower
The sanctions lists and the roster are downloaded from their publishers and matched on our own systems. The names you screen go to no outside screening service.
Guarded on every request
Every page and every request behind sign-in checks who is asking before it answers, and an automated test blocks any release that leaves one unguarded. The site loads no third-party scripts, trackers or advertising.
Payments
Card payments are taken by Stripe. Card numbers go directly to Stripe and Watchtower holds none.
Deletion and notice
We delete your client list ninety days after your subscription ends, or earlier at your written request. If a breach affects your data, we tell you within forty-eight hours.
LIGHTHOUSE

Lighthouse built Watchtower to screen its own clients.


Lighthouse is a global trust service provider that has administered trusts and companies since 1982. Lighthouse uses Watchtower to satisfy its own regulatory requirements. Subscribers use the same engine and receive the same documents.

A compliance officer at work in an office in the Caribbean.
A compliance officer at work in an office in the Channel Islands.
A compliance officer at work in an office in Asia.