ComplyAdvantage vs Facctum (2026)
The real question is whether a firm wants its screening data and its screening engine from the same vendor. ComplyAdvantage sells both. Its sanctions, politically exposed person, watchlist and adverse media data is gathered and curated in house, its Mesh platform screens customers and payments against it, and agentic workflows resolve up to 85 percent of routine alerts within thresholds and risk types the firm sets, logging every decision in an immutable audit trail. It also prices openly, from $99 a month for a self service starter plan. Facctum sells the engine and leaves the lists to the buyer. It ingests commercial, regulatory and internal watchlists, screens customers and payments in real time, returning payment results in under 80 milliseconds on SWIFT, Single Euro Payments Area Instant and ISO 20022 messages, and its adjudication models learn from past decisions to cut manual review by up to 70 percent. Facctum runs in more than 30 cloud regions a firm can choose for residency. Neither says whether one client's alert decisions train the models another client uses.
- A firm wants its screening data and its engine from one supplier. ComplyAdvantage gathers its sanctions, politically exposed person and adverse media data in house and screens against it inside Mesh.
- The compliance team is small and the cost must be known before signing. A self service starter plan prices every step from 100 to 2,000 monitored entities, and an agentic tier adds AI alert resolution.
- Routine alerts swamp the analysts. Agentic workflows resolve up to 85 percent of them inside thresholds and risk types the firm sets, and send high risk cases to a person with a written rationale.
- Fitness and probity checks matter as much as sanctions. ComplyAdvantage's own data covers fitness and probity, relatives and close associates of politically exposed persons, and adverse media alongside sanctions lists.
- The firm already licenses lists from several data providers. Facctum ingests, combines and refines commercial, regulatory and internal watchlists and feeds them to its screening engines.
- Instant payments cannot wait for a batch run. FacctShield monitors inbound and outbound payments in under a millisecond and returns screening results in under 80 milliseconds.
- Regulators require data to stay in a named jurisdiction. Facctum runs in more than 30 cloud regions, so a firm can pick the one that meets its residency rules.
- A legacy screening system cannot be switched off overnight. Facctum's hybrid integration runs beside existing systems for a gradual migration, with batch and webhook interfaces into case management.
This comparison is published by AI FinTech Index, an independent research platform that publishes independent ratings of AI vendors for financial services. ComplyAdvantage and Facctum are each graded against the same capability taxonomy, from each vendor's own public materials and the regulatory record, under the AI FinTech Index verification standard. No vendor pays for placement, and no vendor has reviewed this page. How this evidence is graded
Plain facts
| ComplyAdvantage | Facctum | |
|---|---|---|
| Primary category | AML, KYC & Financial Crime | AML, KYC & Financial Crime |
| Founded | 2014 | 2021 |
| Headquarters | London, England, United Kingdom | London, United Kingdom |
| Website | complyadvantage.com | www.facctum.com |
Side by Side
Select any grade to read the note behind it.
| Axis | C ComplyAdvantage |
F Facctum |
|---|---|---|
| AI Centrality | ||
| Autonomy and Oversight Model | ||
| Model Risk Management and Transparency | ||
| Operational and Outcome Evidence | ||
| AI Safety and Data Stewardship | ||
| GLBA and Data Privacy Posture | ||
| Security Certifications and Trust Center | ||
| Regulatory Status and Licensure | ||
| AI Governance and Bias Disclosure | ||
| AI Liability and Recourse | ||
| Model Supply Chain Disclosure | ||
| Core Systems and Integration Depth | ||
| Deployment Model and Data Residency | ||
| Commercial Transparency | ||
| Institution and Segment Coverage |
Product updates
The latest logged changes from each vendor, newest first, each linked to its source.
Facctum
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Performance evidence
Facctum reported that its watchlist management service processed all 1,653 listings in the EU's 22nd Russia sanctions package, adopted on 12 October across three Council Implementing Regulations, in 4 hours and 53 minutes.
Source
The short version of each
ComplyAdvantage
ComplyAdvantage sells risk intelligence and screening to banks, fintechs, insurers and crypto businesses on data it collects itself, spanning sanctions, watchlists, fitness and probity, politically exposed persons, their relatives and close associates, and adverse media. Mesh combines customer screening, ongoing monitoring, transaction monitoring, payment screening and risk scoring with case management, and its whole database is reachable through one application programming interface. Feeding that data into its entity resolution models cut false positives by 82 percent, it says. In the AI FinTech Index, its published price ladder is the clearest commercial disclosure in this pair.
Source: AI FinTech Index, 2026
Facctum
Facctum, founded in 2021, sells a cloud native screening platform: watchlist management that ingests commercial, regulatory and internal lists, customer screening through FacctView, payment screening through FacctShield, alert adjudication, transaction monitoring and know your business checks. It already handles more than 5 million watchlist records for banks and neobanks. The adjudication engine scores each alert with stated reasoning, reuses earlier decisions and keeps an audit trail for regulators. Banks, payment firms, wealth managers, crypto exchanges and insurers each get material written for their own obligations.
Source: AI FinTech Index, 2026
Common questions
Does either supply the watchlist data?
ComplyAdvantage does, from its own proprietary database. Facctum is list agnostic, ingesting Office of Foreign Assets Control, United Nations and His Majesty's Treasury lists alongside commercial and internal ones, so a firm keeps its existing data contracts. Graded by AI FinTech Index against the same capability axes from each vendor's own published materials, verified October 13, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
How far does each automate alert closure?
ComplyAdvantage's agents resolve up to 85 percent of routine alerts on their own and escalate complex or high risk cases above configurable confidence thresholds. Facctum's adjudication engine resolves alerts and reuses earlier decisions, cutting manual review by up to 70 percent, without stating the score at which it closes one unaided. Graded by AI FinTech Index against the same capability axes from each vendor's own published materials, verified October 13, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
What security assurance does each give?
Facctum states ISO 27001, 27017 and 27018 certification and SOC 2, plus compliance with the EU Digital Operational Resilience Act. ComplyAdvantage describes generally accepted administrative, physical and technical safeguards without naming a certification. Graded by AI FinTech Index against the same capability axes from each vendor's own published materials, verified October 13, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
Do ComplyAdvantage's or Facctum's screening models learn across client firms?
Neither says whether alert decisions at one client train the models that serve another, or how often name matching errs by script, transliteration or region. Facctum also leaves its price to a sales conversation. Graded by AI FinTech Index against the same capability axes from each vendor's own published materials, verified October 13, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
Related comparisons
Other published head to head assessments involving these vendors or their closest peers. The full set for this category is on the AML, KYC & Financial Crime page.
ComplyAdvantage's 85 percent and 82 percent figures and Facctum's 70 percent figures are each company's own; Facctum names no client beside them.