Every cross-border transaction (and increasingly every domestic one) gets screened against OFAC, UN Consolidated, EU Consolidated, and PEP (Politically Exposed Persons) lists. A hit doesn't mean guilty, most are false positives (same name, different person), but a confirmed hit DOES mean you cannot legally complete the payment. The accounting consequence: the payment stops mid-flight. Whatever bucket the money is in (auth pending, in-transit, etc) it gets reclassified to a SCREENING-HELD bucket pending compliance review. This lesson posts an outbound wire that hits a sanctions match, gets held, and then either reverts (false positive cleared) or is permanently blocked.