PTI and AML

Anti-Money Laundering (AML) programs detect, investigate, and report financial crime risk — sanctions exposure, suspicious transaction patterns, and typology-based alerts. PTI is not an AML engine; it integrates AML and screening outputs into a governed trust fabric alongside behavioral trust signals.

1. What AML is

AML encompasses policies, technology, and reporting mandated by financial crime regulations. Core capabilities include:

• Sanctions screening — OFAC, UN, EU, and regional consolidated lists
• PEP and adverse media screening — politically exposed persons and negative news
• Transaction monitoring — rules and models for suspicious activity detection
• Case management — analyst investigation, SAR/STR filing workflows
• Customer risk rating — periodic review based on behavior and profile changes

AML systems optimize for regulatory compliance and suspicious activity detection within a financial institution's transaction perimeter.

2. What problem AML solves

Problem	AML response
Sanctions evasion	Real-time and batch list screening
Structuring and layering	Transaction pattern rules
Terrorist financing	Watchlist and typology monitoring
Regulatory examination	Audit trails, model validation, SAR records

AML answers: Does this customer or transaction present financial crime risk requiring action? It typically does not provide portable behavioral trust — rental reliability, community validation, informal-sector repayment — for inclusion-focused decisions.

3. What PTI adds

AML

• Sanctions and PEP screening
• Transaction monitoring alerts
• Institution-internal case files

PTI adds

• Compliance lens context — risk_compliance scopes screening alongside trust
• Screening as trust evidence — structured screening_summary with provenance
• Fail-closed semantics — explicit not_run and unavailable states
• Behavioral + compliance composition — one lookup envelope for committee review

PTI's Compliance guide defines how screening dimensions integrate into trust lookup responses — additive intelligence, not a replacement for the institution's AML program or filing obligations.

4. How they compose together

Integration pattern:

1. Institution maintains full AML stack for transactions and regulatory reporting.
2. At trust lookup time, PTI may invoke contracted screening providers (sanctions, PEP, identity registry) and return structured compliance_intelligence.
3. Behavioral trust signals from lending, merchant, or informal_sector contexts appear as drivers in the same report.
4. Analysts and automated policy engines receive explainable, provenance-backed inputs — institutions remain responsible for SAR decisions.

For subjects not yet on the trust network, PTI supports external screening routes when strong identifiers are present — billing screening separately from standard lookup tiers.

5. When to use each

Scenario	AML system	PTI
Wire transfer monitoring	Required	Not involved
Sanctions check at account opening	Required	May compose screening result
MFI loan decision for thin-file borrower	Screening Required	Recommended for behavioral trust
Cross-institution portable repayment proof	Outside AML scope	Required
SAR filing	Required (institution)	PTI does not file

PTI complements AML by unifying compliance screening artifacts with portable trust intelligence — it does not reduce AML program scope or regulatory accountability.

6. Related PTI spec/RFC links

• Compliance specification
• Explainability guide
• RFC-002 — Trust Contexts (risk_compliance lens)
• RFC-012 — Trust Evidence
• RFC-007 — Governance

See also

• KYC
• Fraud systems
• Risk engines