Company: Northdoor plc
Co-Founders: Peter Bedells and Robert McKenzie
Website: https://www.northdoor.co.uk/
About Northdoor plc
Northdoor plc’s Sanctions Checker is a powerful SaaS platform that automates financial compliance screening against global sanctions lists, PEPs, and adverse media. The system helps financial institutions reduce compliance risks while cutting operational costs through intelligent automation.
Company Background
Northdoor acquired Sanctions Checker as a result of our purchase of Linksfield Technologies and in response to growing complexity in financial sanctions compliance. The solution has since been developed in response to our work with financial institutions struggling with manual compliance processes. Initial development focused on UK and EU compliance requirements before expanding to global coverage. The system gained industry recognition as a finalist in the 2018 European IT and Software Excellence Awards, validating our approach to solving critical compliance challenges.
Challenges Overcome
Creating Sanctions Checker required overcoming significant technical hurdles. The primary challenge was developing algorithms that could accurately match names across different languages, spellings, and formats while minimising false positives. Our team built sophisticated matching logic that dramatically improved accuracy compared to traditional methods.
Integration presented another major challenge. Financial institutions use diverse systems, so we developed flexible APIs and connectors to enable seamless integration with existing CRM and ERP platforms. We have integrated with several third-party solutions to allow them to offer automated checks against major databases while maintaining their system performance.
The regulatory landscape constantly shifts, requiring continuous adaptation. We solved this through a dynamic update system that automatically incorporates new sanctions lists and regulatory changes without disrupting operations.
Industry Impact
Sanctions Checker has transformed how financial institutions approach compliance screening. By automating what was previously a manual, error-prone process, we’ve helped organisations reduce compliance checking time by up to 85%, all the while improving data accuracy.
Our innovation in reducing false positives has had a particular impact. Traditional systems flag numerous incorrect matches, creating substantial workload. Our advanced algorithms cut false positives by over 60%, allowing compliance teams to focus on genuine risks.
The solution has also allowed smaller financial institutions the ability and affordability to use enterprise-grade compliance tools through our low cost, flexible SaaS model.
Future Development
We continue to enhance Sanctions Checker with AI capabilities that further improve matching accuracy and reduce false positives, working with our User Roundtables to ensure the product constantly evolves. Our development roadmap includes expanded global database coverage and advanced reporting features to help clients demonstrate compliance to regulators more effectively.
Sanctions Checker represents a significant advancement in financial compliance technology, combining technical innovation with practical business benefits to create a solution that truly transforms how organisations manage sanctions risk. With clients around the world, we offer a reliable, low-cost solution that it is both easy to integrate and easy to use.
