OFAC Screening on Every Credit Application

The sanctions check is not a separate browser tab someone may or may not remember to open. It runs on the application, and the result stays on the file.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control, part of the United States Treasury, publishes lists of individuals and entities that US businesses are prohibited from doing business with. The rule applies to everyone, not only banks, and a dealership selling and financing a vehicle is doing business. OFAC screening is the check of a customer's name against those lists before the deal proceeds. Most dealers know this obligation exists; the problem has always been making the check happen on every deal, and being able to prove afterward that it did.

In SecureWebX, OFAC screening runs against the credit application record, inside the console, on the file the finance office is already working. The result is shown on the application and kept with it. That moves the check from a separate website someone visits when they remember to a step that sits on every application in the inbox.

This page is the product side of the feature. The OFAC compliance software for car dealerships page explains what the screening obligation requires of a store, how to build the process around it and where a record layer fits; read that one for the compliance program, this one for the button.

An application arrives from the website apply link on a Wednesday morning. The finance manager opens it from the inbox, reviews the applicant's details, and runs OFAC screening on the record before he does anything else with the file. The screening comes back clear, the result shows on the application, and the audit log records that he ran it and when. He assigns the application, sets the amount requested and moves it toward a lender. The screening took less time than reading this paragraph, and it happened on the file rather than in a tab he then had to screenshot and staple to a deal jacket.

On a Friday a co-applicant deal comes in with an uncommon name, and the screening returns a potential match. Nothing about the software decides what happens next; the store's OFAC policy does, and the store's counsel wrote it. The finance manager holds the deal, adds a note on the application recording what he saw and who he called, and follows the policy. Whatever the outcome, the application shows the screening, the note and the resolution, in order, with names and times. If anyone asks later, the answer is a record.

Leave your number and a lead specialist calls you back to answer your questions about pricing, coverage, and setup. Mon - Sat, 9:00 AM - 6:00 PM Pacific.

Prefer to talk right now? Call or text 844-376-2274.

The screening checks the applicant on the credit application against the OFAC sanctions list and reports the result on the application record. Because the check runs from the record, the name it checks is the name the applicant entered and signed, not a name retyped into a separate site. A co-applicant on the same application is part of the same file, so the finance office screens the people on the deal from the deal. The screening is run from the record by a console user whose role allows it, and because the console keeps a full audit log, the entry for the screening records that user and the time alongside every other action taken on the file.

The result lives on the application next to everything else the file holds: the applicant's consent against versioned terms, the disclosures shown, the supporting documents, the stipulations, the lender shares and the decision. The audit log records who ran the screening and when. Records are archived, never deleted, so a screening run years ago is still on the file when a question about it arrives.

On the application, in the SecureWebX console, which opens from the SecureWebX button in the LeadLocate CRM dock with one login. Open any application from the credit application inbox and OFAC screening is on the record. There is no separate screening tool, separate login or separate log to reconcile with the deal file. The screening sits in the same view as the stipulations, the supporting documents, the lender shares and the worksheets, so a finance manager working the file top to bottom passes the check on the way rather than leaving the console to do it.

Users are invited into the console with roles, so a store decides who runs screenings. On the CRM side, the salesperson sees the application's status and can open it in SecureWebX to see the screening result if the store's roles allow it, so a rep who is asked whether a deal can proceed does not have to guess.

It replaces the browser tab. In most stores the OFAC check is a website someone visits, a name typed by hand, and a screenshot printed and stapled into the deal jacket, on the deals where someone remembered. It replaces the binder of those printouts, the question of whether the check was done on the deal that closed on a busy Saturday, and the retyping that lets a transposed letter produce a clean result for the wrong name.

It also replaces a line item. Compliance vendors sell dealership screening as a separate subscription with its own login and invoice, disconnected from the application it is about. Here the screening runs on the application inside SecureWebX, which is part of every LeadLocate plan, month to month, on the pricing page. The online credit application software page puts screening in the context of everything else an application system should do for a store.

Two things matter to an examiner or a lawyer asking about a store's OFAC practice: was the check done on every deal, and can the store show it. Running the screening on the application record answers both. The screening is a step on the file rather than a separate habit, and the result and the audit log entry stay on the file under the archive, never delete rule, viewable in a watermarked PDF viewer with print and download gated, protected by two factor authentication on every sign in and encryption at rest.

What the software does not do is decide. A potential match is a fact on the file; what the store does with it is the store's OFAC policy, written by the store's counsel, and the finance office follows it. Software supports a compliance program rather than replacing one, and a vendor who says a screening button makes a dealership compliant on its own is telling you something about the vendor. What SecureWebX provides is the check on every application and the proof that it ran.

It is on. OFAC screening is part of every application in the SecureWebX console, which is created with your LeadLocate account. Invite the finance office into the console with roles, open the first application, and the screening is on the record. If your store's policy needs a screening step the console does not already offer, it is available on request, and our team puts it in production for your dealership.

Because SecureWebX runs as its own system, screening keeps working and its results keep being retained even if the CRM is unavailable, and every screening already on a file is unaffected by an interruption on either side.

Pair it with apply links, so the name being screened is the name the applicant typed and signed on their own phone. Pair it with Send to Lender, so the screening is on the file before the application goes to a lender. Pair it with the adverse action notice and the store's disclosures, so a file that could not proceed carries the full record of why. The all features page lists everything else in the platform, and the pre-recorded live demo shows an application worked from arrival to decision, screening included.

Do car dealerships have to run OFAC checks?

The OFAC prohibition on doing business with listed persons applies to US businesses generally, and a dealership selling and financing vehicles is doing business. What a store's screening policy requires is for its compliance counsel; SecureWebX makes the check a step on every application.

Where do I run the screening?

On the application record in the SecureWebX console. Open the application from the inbox, run OFAC screening, and the result shows on the file. The audit log records who ran it and when.

What happens if there is a potential match?

The result shows on the application, and the store follows its own OFAC policy. The finance office records what it did in the application's notes, so the screening, the note and the resolution are on the file together.

Is the screening result kept?

Yes. Records are archived, never deleted. The screening result and its audit log entry stay on the application for as long as the store needs them, next to the consent, disclosures, documents and decision.

Does OFAC screening in SecureWebX make my store compliant?

No software does. Screening on every application and a record that it ran are what a compliance program needs from its application system. The policy, and what to do on a match, are the store's and its counsel's.

Is there a separate charge for OFAC screening?

No. It is part of SecureWebX, which is part of every LeadLocate plan, month to month, with no separate screening subscription. Plans are listed on the pricing page.

OFAC screening is part of SecureWebX and every LeadLocate plan, month to month. See the check run on an application and the result stay on the record with the audit log.

Prefer to talk right now? Call or text 844-376-2274.