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Overview

Beyond the initial Customer Identification Program (CIP) checks covered in the KYC/KYB guide, financial service providers are required to conduct ongoing monitoring of their customers. Synctera’s monitoring offering continuously screens enrolled customers against a global list of sanctions and enforcement watchlists, Politically Exposed Person (PEP) sources, and adverse media. A monitoring subscription enrolls a customer with one of Synctera’s monitoring vendors. When new information surfaces (a watchlist hit, a Secretary of State filing, a bankruptcy, etc.), a monitoring alert is created and a case is opened in the Synctera Case Manager for a compliance officer to review. Key characteristics:
  • Continuous — screening runs on an ongoing basis after the customer is verified, not just at onboarding.
  • Vendor-backed — each subscription represents enrollment with a monitoring vendor (e.g. Socure, Middesk).
  • Alert-driven — incoming signals create monitoring alerts, each of which opens a review case.
  • On by default — all customers are automatically enrolled unless the feature is disabled.
Monitoring enrollment for personal customers is currently available only in the Synctera Production environment. By default, all customers are enrolled in ongoing monitoring — contact your Synctera sales representative to disable this. This guide showcases a manual implementation of ongoing monitoring.

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Prerequisites

This guide assumes you have: You should also be familiar with:

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The monitoring objects

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Monitoring subscription

A subscription represents a customer’s enrollment with a monitoring vendor. It contains a unique identifier, the customer identifier, and any additional metadata.
See the API reference for the full schema.

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Monitoring alert

An alert is created when a signal is received for a customer. It contains a unique identifier, the customer identifier, the alert type, a status, a list of urls with more information, and a vendor-specific representation of the alert.
Every incoming customer monitoring alert triggers a case in the Synctera Case Manager so the customer’s profile can be manually reviewed by a compliance officer. See the API reference for the full schema.

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Enrolling a customer in monitoring

1

Create a personal customer

Create a record for the customer with POST /v0/persons:
See the Create a Personal Customer guide for details.
2

Record a KYC data collection disclosure

Display a disclosure informing the customer that you are collecting personal data to be shared with a third party for identity verification, then record it with POST /v0/disclosures:
See the Record Disclosure Acceptance guide for details.
3

Verify the customer

With the customer created and consent captured, run verification with POST /v0/verifications/verify:
Consent must come directly from the customer.
4

Enroll the customer in monitoring

Once the customer is verified, create a monitoring subscription with POST /v0/monitoring/subscriptions:

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Best practices

Monitoring alerts require timely human review. Every alert opens a case in the Synctera Case Manager — ensure a compliance officer triages these promptly to stay within regulatory timelines.
  • Verify before enrolling — a subscription is meaningful only for a verified customer; complete KYC first.
  • Rely on default enrollment — customers are enrolled automatically; only implement manual enrollment if you have disabled the default.
  • Handle alerts programmatically — subscribe to alert notifications and route them into your review workflow rather than polling.
  • Preserve alert urls — capture the supporting documents referenced by each alert for your audit trail.

Create a Personal Customer

Onboard the customer you want to monitor.

KYC/KYB Verification

Verify a customer before enrolling them in monitoring.

Record Disclosure Acceptance

Capture the KYC data collection disclosure.

Enhanced Due Diligence

Respond to alerts and high-risk ratings with additional information.

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API reference