Industries — Legal & professional services
Law firms, accountancy practices, corporate service providers and real estate firms use SafetyNet’s client due diligence software to screen clients, beneficial owners and counterparties — and to keep the client file that evidences it.
The problem
Client due diligence is judged on the file, long after the matter closed and the people who worked on it moved on.
Your supervisory body does not review your policy. It picks a matter and reads the file — what was checked on this client, against what, on which date, and who signed it off. A well-written procedure does not help if the file is thin.
The client wants work started, the partner wants the client, and take-on is the only thing standing between them. Due diligence that takes days is due diligence that gets shortened, delegated down, or finished after the first invoice.
Long-standing clients were checked once, at take-on, sometimes years ago. Circumstances change and lists change; a client who was clear when you onboarded them is not necessarily clear now, and nobody is looking.
Where it sits
The same platform at every stage, so the client file is continuous instead of assembled from four places when somebody asks to see it.
Identity verified and the client screened before you act, with the document check and the search running as one step rather than two systems and a re-keyed name.
Results separated by source let you rate the client on what was actually found, and send only the higher-risk take-ons for enhanced due diligence instead of treating every file the same way.
The client becomes an entity in KYC::DB — ownership, documents, notes and audit trail in one place, with its own monitoring schedule, so the file stays current while the retainer runs.
Per-client reports for a supervisory review, plus practice-level reporting: risk distribution, hits by source, top high-risk matches, and scheduled delivery for the MLRO and the partners.
What it checks
The FATF’s risk-based approach guidance for legal professionals expects you to identify the client and its beneficial owners, then assess the risk they bring. SafetyNet covers each part in one platform.
Verify ID authenticates the identity document, runs forensic checks and extracts its data, which feeds straight into the screening search without anyone re-keying a name.
For corporate clients, link analysis maps corporate and personal connections and records the members, directors, UBOs and cap table behind each entity, so ownership sits in the client file rather than in someone’s notes.
Every client is screened against 1,800+ global sanctions, PEP and PIP lists, with results separated by source — sanctions, PEP, adverse media, court records and ICIJ leaked-document data — so a PEP match is never read as a sanctions hit.
Next
Everything SafetyNet does about each control is written down once, so it stays accurate. These pages are the same for every industry — this one is not.
Eleven controls, each mapped to what SafetyNet does about it — screening, ownership, monitoring, refresh, records, access and redress — plus deployment, audit and retention.
See control coverageMost practices run EDD — list screening plus internet search, link analysis, integrated ID verification and multi-user access. Lite fits a small practice with a screening duty and nothing more; Enterprise covers every office and your own deployment.
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