Companies are required by law to check the compliance status of potential and existing business partners in order to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing.

This means that they must determine whether their (potential) business partners are politically exposed persons, persons close to them or sanctioned persons.

• Politically exposed persons (PEP):
  • Persons who hold or have previously held important public offices are referred to as politically exposed persons. These include, for example, heads of state and government, ministers and their deputies, state secretaries, members of parliament, members of the supreme courts or the top echelons of state authorities such as audit offices or central banks. Ambassadors and executives of state-owned companies are also included.
• Close associates of a politically exposed person (PEP close associates):
  • Persons are designated as close to the PEP if, for example, they are immediate family members of a politically exposed person. Persons who are known to have close business relationships with the PEP are also included in this group of persons.
• Sanctioned persons:
  • Sanctioned persons are persons against whom economic and/or legal restrictions have been imposed by states or communities of states. This also includes persons who are associated with sanctioned persons. Companies face severe consequences if they provide sanctioned persons with, for example, financial resources, economically realizable resources or real estate.

One common method is to compare the personal data of potential or existing business partners against lists of politically exposed persons and lists of sanctioned persons - so-called compliance lists.

The sources of information for the PEP lists are official government websites and official publications. The sanctions lists come from official publishers such as ministries and institutions. SCHUFA carries out this comparison to support its contractual partners. It has no effect on SCHUFA's assessment of your creditworthiness.