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Sanctions Screening Distribution for Service Bureaus

End user terms and conditions - June 2017

Introduction

Swift is active in the field of financial crime compliance, and offers various services and products supporting compliance with sanctions regulations of its customers worldwide.

One of Swift’s financial crime compliance products and services is a cloud-based Sanctions Screening Service that provides easy, secure and competitive screening services for the End Users. Those End Users are all Swift users.

Purpose of the document

This document sets out the applicable terms and conditions applicable to a Swift user that subscribes to Swift’s Sanctions Screening Service through the intermediation of a Service Bureau.

The present End User Terms and Conditions document forms an integral part of the contractual arrangements between Swift and its Sanctions Screening customers that subscribe to Sanctions Screening through the intermediation of a Service Bureau. It must be read and agreed along with any other specific terms and conditions relating to the provision and use of other relevant Swift services and products, as specified elsewhere in the relevant Swift contractual documentation.

Audience

This document is intended for the following audience:

  • Swift users that want to understand the terms and conditions that govern the use of the Sanctions Screening Service distributed by a Service Bureau.
  • Service Bureaux that want to offer a subscription to the Sanctions Screening Service to their End Users

Swift may amend these End User Terms and Conditions at any time upon notice to End Users.

Swift-defined terms

In the context of Swift documentation, certain terms have a specific meaning. These terms are called Swift-defined terms (for example, customer, user, or Swift services and products). The definitions of Swift-defined terms appear in the Swift Glossary.

Related documentation

  • Shared Infrastructure Programme Terms and Conditions
  • Shared Infrastructure Policy
  • Sanctions Screening Service Description
  • Swift General Terms and Conditions
  • Swift Corporate Rules
  • Swift By-laws
  • Swift Personal Data Protection Policy

Except as deviated from in these End User Terms and Conditions, provision and use of the Sanctions Screening Service mentioned herein as well as the provision and use of support services will be governed by Swift General Terms and Conditions and the respective applicable service descriptions, including the Sanctions Screening Service Description.

Overview

The Sanctions Screening service is a centralised Swift service that screens messages exchanged on a financial messaging network. For customers that subscribe to the service, the selected messages are routed to a central application that screens the messages in real time against public sanctions lists and if applicable, against customers' private and exceptions lists.

Sanctions Screening can apply to outgoing messages, or incoming messages, or both.

Sanctions Screening is designed to alert customers about transactions for which customers may have to apply asset-freezing or other sanctions-related measures. Sanctions Screening only alerts customers about hits against one or more of the lists selected by the customer.

Besides a selection of the public lists that are supported by the service, the alert service is also available for a customer-defined private list. It remains the customer's sole responsibility to decide which measures to implement with regard to such alerted message. Because it is only an alert service,

Sanctions Screening may only be used by the customer on a supplementary basis, in addition to its other compliance procedures and controls related to sanctions.

Definition of a Sanctions Screening Distributor  

A Sanctions Screening Distributor is a company that has been admitted under the Swift Shared Infrastructure Programme and has entered into a Swift Sanctions Screening Distribution Agreement for Service Bureaux with Swift.

End User's Roles and Responsibilities

  • End Users that decide to subscribe to the Sanctions Screening Service through the intermediation of a Service Bureau do so at their own risk and responsibility
  • Swift disclaims any and all liability for any and all acts, faults, or omissions of the Service Bureau.
  • Swift encourages all End Users considering to subscribe through the intermediation of the Service Bureau to undertake all due diligence that they believe is necessary.
  • An End User that leaves, or changes its Sanctions Screening Distributor must give at least three months prior written notice to Swift of its intention to do so.

The End User will be responsible for submitting the appropriate e-order to subscribe to the Sanctions Screening Service on www.swift.com. If the End User delegates such submission of the e-order to its Sanctions Screening Distributor, the End User must ensure it follows the delegation principles as available on www.swift.com

Swift will deliver the necessary tokens to the Sanctions Administrators as appointed by the End User in the e-order form. The End User remains fully responsible to protect the security and use of its tokens, in accordance with its responsibilities as set out in the Sanctions Screening service description. In particular, it is the sole responsibility of the End User to prevent an unauthorised party from using its token and password to release, abort, or flag an unauthorised transaction. 

The Sanctions Screening Distributor has acknowledged and agreed to keep its End Users informed of all acts, orders, and subscriptions performed for them or on their behalf, and to advise them of the terms and conditions applicable to them as a result thereof.  However, Swift remains the direct contact towards its End Users for any matter related to Swift membership.

An End User must ensure that the scope of rights that it grants to its Sanctions Screening Distributor in respect of Swift Sanctions Screening Service and related services and products remains compliant with Swift applicable documentation. Also an End User that decides to subscribe to Sanctions Screening through the intermediation of a Sanctions Screening Distributor must ensure that its selected Sanctions Screening Distributor is bound by no less stringent obligations than those incumbent upon the End User under its contractual arrangements with Swift.

An End User remains responsible to Swift for due performance and observance by its Sanctions Screening Distributor of those of its obligations it may decide to sub-contract to it. In particular, a failure by the Sanctions Screening Distributor selected by its End User to comply with these obligations may result in the suspension or the termination by Swift of the End User's access to and use of the Sanctions Screening service.

In particular, the End Users have the following responsibilities:

  • Control how the Sanctions Screening Distributor manages access to, and the use of, the Swift Sanctions Screening Service and, in particular, ensure that all security features allocated to the End User to secure its access and use of the Swift Sanctions Screening service are securely operated and kept safe to prevent any unauthorised access to or use of the Swift Sanctions Screening service.
  • Ensure that the Sanctions Screening Distributor maintains and documents an acceptable level of security standards for confidentiality, integrity, and systems availability.
  • Ensure that the Sanctions Screening Distributor is bound by no less stringent obligations of confidence than those applicable to it as a Swift user in respect of information related to Swift services or, more generally, Swift operations.

Confidential information

End Users agree that Swift may disclose confidential information from End Users with their Sanctions Screening Distributor, and that the Sanctions Screening Distributor may also disclose such information with Swift, provided always that such disclosure is either necessary for the execution of its contractual obligations and for legitimate purposes, such as provisioning, support, operational, or reporting purposes; or in order to market any Swift products or services that could meet the needs of the End Users.

Sanctions Screening Distributor Eligibility Requirements

Any organisation willing to operate as a Sanctions Screening Distributor, and meeting the respective eligibility criteria must first register with Swift as a Shared Infrastructure provider and agree to the Shared Infrastructure Programme Terms and Conditions and the Shared Infrastructure Policy as well as comply with all applicable operational requirements.

Service level agreement between End Users and their Sanctions Screening Distributor

The Sanctions Screening Distributor is contractually required to provide End Users with a service level agreement based on the Operational Requirements issued and amended by Swift from time to time.  The End User must ensure that its service level agreement with the Service Bureau includes appropriate provisions requiring the Service Bureau to apply strict procedures and processes to preserve the confidentiality of the End User’s transaction and alert data and to strictly segregate End User transaction and alert data from that of other End Users at all times when configuring End Users on the Connector for Sanctions. If the End User has not entered into such a service level agreement with the Sanctions Screening Distributor before the Service Bureau intends to configure the End User on the test environment, the End User must promptly remedy the situation and ensure it enters into such agreement with its Sanctions Screening Distributor before any configuration in the live environment. The End User may not be configured in the live environment nor use the Sanctions Screening service before having entered into such service level agreement.

While, in principle, the Sanctions Screening Distributor will be the prime contact for its End Users on the use of Swift and is expected to be able to deal with questions or issues raised by its End Users in connection with their use of Sanctions Screening, a Swift user may still contact Swift directly and Swift may still have direct communication with them, as appropriate, on Swift membership matters, in connection with supporting End Users on their use of the Sanctions Screening Service, or otherwise in relation to other Swift services and products.

Termination of a Sanctions Screening Distributor  

In the exceptional case that Swift would terminate its agreement with a Sanctions Screening Distributor, Swift will use commercially reasonable efforts to notify the impacted End Users at least three months in advance (or, in an emergency, as much advance notice as possible) of effective termination. Such termination does not affect the End User’s right to continue to use the Sanctions Screening Service that it has subscribed with Swift directly, even without using the related services it received from the Service Bureau Distributor.  In such case, the Sanctions Screening annual subscription fees will be invoiced to the End User directly instead of being invoiced to the Service Bureau Distributor.

Termination by a Sanctions Screening Distributor of its agreement with End Users

End Users understand and agree that their Sanctions Screening Distributor may terminate their agreement to service End Users, in accordance with the contractual provisions set out between the Sanctions Screening Distributor and its End Users. It is the responsibility of the End Users to ensure that the termination and other contractual provisions with its Sanctions Screening Distributor are appropriately meeting the End Users needs and requirements with regard to its use of the Sanctions Screening service.

2. Fees Payable to Swift

The fees payable to Swift for the provision of the Sanctions Screening Service include three components:  (a) an annual Subscription License Fee; (b) a Connector Fee (where appropriate); and (c) a Volume Fee (which shall either be per the Connector option or the Copy option, as specified in the End User’s order).

Swift shall, unless otherwise agreed with End Users in writing, invoice only the Sanctions Screening Distributor directly, and the Sanctions Screening Distributor shall be obliged to pay to Swift, components (a) and (b) above for the use of the Swift Sanctions Screening Service by the End Users.  In such instance, the Sanctions Screening Distributor will act as an intermediary in the sense of article 28 of the EU VAT directive. If the Sanctions Screening Distributor does not pay all such fees and charges in a timely manner, then Swift is entitled to suspend or terminate the provision of the Sanctions Screening service to the End Users concerned.

Except as otherwise agreed between Swift and End User, Swift shall only invoice the End User directly for the Volume Fees as represented by (c) above, which is the fee per message screened by the Sanctions Screening service for the End User, as billed on a monthly basis.

The then current applicable Volume Fees will be set out to the End User in the commercial quotation made available by Swift or by the Sanctions Screening Distributor on behalf of Swift. The End User must reference the commercial quotation number in the e-order by which the End User will subscribe to the Sanctions Screening service. For more details on the Volume Fees payable to Swift for the provision of the Sanctions Screening service, the End User must contact its Sanctions Screening Distributor or its Swift account manager.

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