Comparing OFAC SDN list providers: DueVestor vs Refinitiv World-Check
A side-by-side of the data sources, freshness model, and update cadence for sanctions screening — and why "more lists" is not the same as "better screening".
Sanctions-list providers love to advertise the raw count of lists they ingest. The number obscures a more useful question: are the four canonical lists fresh, complete, and cross-verified? Once you answer that, "1,400 vs 1,100 lists" stops mattering — which is why DueVestor counts its 22+ lists by official government and multilateral publishers ingested directly, not by aggregator catalog size.
The four canonical lists
- OFAC SDN (US Treasury) — the gold standard for US-issuer compliance.
- UN Consolidated (Security Council) — multilateral coverage.
- EU Consolidated Financial Sanctions (FSF) — required for any EU footprint.
- UK OFSI — required for any UK touchpoint, increasingly diverged from EU.
DueVestor ingests all four FREE and direct from the canonical publisher. Each list is downloaded as XML/CSV, cached for 24 hours, parsed in-process, and token-matched against the subject with Levenshtein fuzzy. No paid intermediary.
Why cross-verification matters more than list count
A name hit on OFAC AND UN AND EU is HIGH confidence. The same name on OFAC only is MEDIUM. Single-source hits — especially adverse-media or PEP signals — are exactly where false positives explode. DueVestor exposes the confidence tier inline; cheaper providers lump everything into one binary "MATCH" column.
Refinitiv vs DueVestor
Refinitiv World-Check is a subscription product with opaque per-seat pricing. DueVestor is on-demand: $15 buys a full Type B EDD L3 (20–30 pages including the four canonical lists, GDELT adverse media, CourtListener litigation, and cross-source confidence scoring).