Connecting an online shop
If you want to connect an online shop, a marketplace, an online onboarding system and the like to sanctions list or PEP screening via our API, there are several ways to do it. Depending on your scenario, one option will suit you better than the other. Feel free to get in touch so we can work out together which one fits you best.
1. Building sanctions list / PEP screening into the ordering process (individual checks only)
You want customers to be screened against sanctions lists or PEP lists right in the ordering process? Then it makes sense to run the check asynchronously via method=1 (individual check), as soon as the customer has entered their details at checkout and BEFORE they are forwarded to the payment methods. The API returns the result within a few milliseconds. If a hit is identified – on a sanctions list, say – the order should be set to "hold". At the same time the customer should see a message such as: "Your order cannot be processed at the moment; a member of staff will contact you." The API response should then be shown with the corresponding order in the shop's back office, so that a member of staff can check manually whether the sanction really applies or whether it is merely a false positive (more on assessing hits). The order can then be released if appropriate.
2. Building sanctions list / PEP screening into the ordering process AND importing customers into easycompliance for list screening (daily monitoring)
If you want customers to be screened immediately after an order in your shop AND imported into easycompliance for daily automatic screening (list screening), start as described under 1. This time, however, use method=2 (individual check AND the name is added to the list for automatic list screening). Because the customer is now stored in easycompliance and screened automatically every day, regular customers no longer have to be checked via the API when they order again. It therefore makes sense to set a flag in your customer database, for example "import_easycompliance", which defaults to "0" or "false":
If import_easycompliance=0/false, the API request should be sent via method=2 when an order is placed AND import_easycompliance should be set to "1" or "true".
If a customer orders again and import_easycompliance=1/true, no further API request is needed for that order, because the customer has already been imported into easycompliance and is screened automatically every day.
Using method=3 you can then query daily whether any new hits have occurred in the last 24 hours – to set an automatic order block, for example. The API returns the customers concerned together with their data. Even with a high order volume, this keeps the number of requests to our API to a minimum, which saves both cost and resources. The method=3 query is optional: our system notifies you whenever list screening generates hits, so a member of staff can just as well sign in to the easycompliance customer portal to review and assess them.
Choosing a plan
Our "classic" plans do not include an API connection to start with. An API plan can, however, be added to any package. That is what you need for option 2 above, because there you also need a classic plan – easy EU 2,000, for example – to be able to use list screening (automatic monitoring) at all. Please contact us if you would like an API connection alongside a classic plan, and let us know your number of monthly orders or API requests. If you only want to use individual checks (option 1), you do not need a classic plan but a pure API plan instead. That is available on request – again, please tell us roughly how many orders or API requests you expect per month.
Initial import for option 2
If you want to import all your customers into easycompliance right at the start, this should NOT be done via the API. Our API can handle thousands of requests at once, but from a cost and resource point of view this approach makes little sense, because every customer requires a separate API request. If you have 10,000 customers to import into easycompliance, you would first have to make (and pay for) 10,000 API requests. For the initial import, the import via a CSV file is therefore the right choice – and it is already included in our classic plans.
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