2009 Spring Newsletter
MK Data Services Enhances its Customer-Focused Solutions and Services
MK Data Services recently launched an new and enhanced version of its web services solution enabling customers supporting high-volumes of transations to dynamically screen customers, vendors and trading partners directly from their Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platforms including popular solutions such as SAP, Oracle, JD Edwards, BaaN, and numerous others including “homegrown” solutions.
MK Data Services has created an easy to use manual that enables software development professionals and implementation consultants to write custom integrations using an application program interface. In addition to enhancing the Web Services offering MK Data Services has also revised the company’s bulk screening solutions, and improved the breadth and depth of its denied and restricted parties screening solutions. To learn more about web services, dynamic screening or to access the latest documentation in the support library contact your MK Data Services Account Representative.
The 7 Dirty Words of Restricted Party Screening
By Ken Harris, Managing Partner MK Data Services
“ I love words. I thank you for hearing my words. I want to tell you something about words that I uh, I think is important. I love as I say, they're my work, they're my play, they're my passion. Words are all we have really.” -- George Carlin
The legendary comedian George Carlin, who passed away last year, was famous for his skit on the seven dirty words you cannot say on television (words, of course, that can be heard on any playground across America.) In honor of Mr. Carlin, let’s discuss the 7 “dirty words” that should never be used in denied/restricted parties screening. Not dirty in the sense of vulgarity, but dirty in the sense of not providing the customer with desirable results.
Despite its complexities, screening is simply an exercise in matching, a comparison of a particular entity relative to another party. While there are several challenges unique to the exercise, there are only really two objectives in performing this exercise. First and most important, you do not want to conduct business, for the most part, with anyone associated on any of the lists. To that end, customers will want to set their screening tools to a sensitivity level that will not allow them to miss screening against these parties. Balanced against that objective is setting the tool to a level that will not be too sensitive in that it will create volumes of false positives that need to be resolved.
In order to meet the 2nd objective and reduce the number of “false hits”, many companies have implemented the use of a common word exclusion list. This would comprise a list of words that would NOT produce a “hit” due to their inclusion within a particular search string. Such words might include corporation, company, limited, etc. For example, a company conducting a search on “Jones Company” would not realize a hit on “Smith Company” simply because of the appearance of the word company. While this is recognized as a best practice and many customers have created their own unique common word list (a common word list for the banking sector might be quite different then a common word list for a pharmaceutical company), there are many others word to consider for omission when performing a screen.
“Yeah, there are 400,000 words in the English language, and there are seven of them that you can't say on television. What a ratio that is. 399,993 to seven. They must really be bad. “
--- George Carlin
Here are is list of the seven words that appear most frequently in a random audit of our sanctioned parties database:
# 1 - AL# 2 - RIHS# 3 - DE# 4 - Of# 5 - SA# 6 - FOR# 7 - Committee Other words making frequent appearances included Center (Centre), Foundation, Group, and State. Likewise, proper names can also be problematic. Each of the names below appear in at least 100 unique records:
- Abu IBRAHIM RODRIGUEZ
- Abdul MUHAMMAD (MOHAMMAD, MOHAMED)
- Ali MARIA
- Ahmed JOSE
- AMED (AHMAD) Carlos
A case for “All Word Match”
While one could argue the point of adding these words to a traditional common word exclusion list, the point should be made that entering these words simply by themselves could trigger too many hits. Therefore, one should consider refining a search to consider multiple words. In the earlier example, a match would only occur in both.
While it might not be accurate to consider these for words exclusion, one should consider that use of such a word, along with a liberal searching rule such as “any word match” will produce many potential matches. For example, let’s say your customer is Ahmed Ali Khan. If your normal searching rule is “any word match” you might find yourself with over 1,800 potential matches. An “all word match” would produce a more desirable and accurate result.
“And words, you know the seven don't you? …. Those are the heavy seven. Those are the ones that will infect your soul, curve your spine and keep the country from winning the war.”
--- George Carlin
MK Data Services Launches New Website
In an effort to better serve the needs of the firms growing customer base MK Data Services designed and launched an entirely new website that included a host of new features and showcases a fresh new corporate identity.
The enhancements to the website include a new navigation scheme, making it incredibly intuitive and user friendly in addition to functional additions such as a new “support” area for customers and RSS enabled content making it easy for customers to keep abreast of changes such as new solutions and services that the company is offering.
Plans are in the works for additional enhancements to the website’s support sections. Existing customers are urged to provide their comments and feedback on the site and make suggestions for new features that would provide a better user-experience and or increase the effectiveness of the website as a support tool.
If you have comments on the website we would love to hear them. Please feel free to contact us with your feedback.
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