PEP screening

A politically exposed person holds or has held a prominent public function, or is a close associate or family member of someone who does. The status is not an accusation; it is a signal that the relationship carries a higher corruption risk and needs closer scrutiny.

In practice a PEP match should route the case to a senior reviewer with a documented decision, not stop it. Systems that treat a PEP hit as a hard block tend to be quietly overridden, which is worse than having no check at all.