Signal Cases is where you review and act on adverse media findings that EFI's automated monitoring system has flagged against your counterparties. Each signal represents a cluster of related news articles — grouped by topic and institution — that may indicate financial crime risk. Navigate here from Case Management or from an entity's detail page.
Understanding Signals
Signals are automatically generated by EFI's adverse media clustering system, which continuously monitors news sources for mentions of your counterparties. When the system finds articles that suggest potential financial crime involvement, it groups them into a topic cluster and creates a signal case for your review.
Each signal is categorized using standard financial crime typologies — for example, FRD (Fraud), MLA (Money Laundering), SMG (Smuggling), or TER (Terrorist Related). The category is assigned automatically by AI analysis and may need manual confirmation during your review.
By default, the list hides completed signals so you can focus on open items. Uncheck Exclude completed signals in the filter panel to see everything.
Filtering and Finding Signals
Click Show Filters to open the filter panel. You can narrow the list by Institution, Title, Description, Status, Closure Reason, Sequence Number, Assigned To, Category Confirmed, Label, Category, and a Created After / Created Before date range. The Only show my signals checkbox is useful when your team shares a large queue and you want to focus on your assignments.
Two filters are worth calling out. Category Confirmed shows which signals a reviewer has already verified, so you can find work that still needs a human decision. Closure Reason includes an Exclude Automatically Closed option, which hides the signals EFI closed on its own while keeping the ones your team closed.
The Category filter is a multi-select list of financial crime typologies. Select one or more categories to focus on specific risk areas — for example, filtering to just MLA and FRD during a money laundering review.
Reviewing a Signal
Click the magnifying glass icon on any row to open the full signal detail view. The detail page has two main areas: the signal description on the left and the details sidebar on the right.
AI-Generated Summary
The description contains an AI-generated analysis that synthesizes all articles in the cluster into a structured summary covering:
- Event Overview — what happened
- Parties Involved — which institutions and authorities are named
- Timeline and Development — when events occurred and how they progressed
- Financial and Regulatory Impact — monetary consequences and regulatory implications
- Risk Assessment Implications — how this affects the institution's risk profile
- Sources and Credibility — source tier ratings and publication dates
Each article in the cluster is listed individually with its source, tier rating, publication date, category, involvement level (primary or secondary), sentiment, and a direct link to the original article.
A note at the bottom reminds you that the signal was automatically generated and may contain errors — always verify critical information against the original sources.
Details Sidebar
The sidebar shows key metadata: the linked institution, assigned category, status, close reason, assignee, labels, and article count. Click any editable field to update it — for example, click "unassigned" next to Assigned to to assign the signal to a team member, or use the - assign yourself link to take it on directly.
Signals don't carry a priority or a due date. To judge how urgent a finding is, read the category alongside each article's source tier, involvement and sentiment — see the Signals guide for how to weigh those together.
Working a Signal
The typical workflow for handling a signal:
- Review the summary — read the AI-generated analysis and check the linked articles
- Confirm the category — if the AI-assigned category is correct, click Confirm Category to timestamp your verification. If it's wrong, update the category in the sidebar first
- Add comments — use the rich text editor below the description to document your findings, analysis, or escalation rationale
- Attach files — drag and drop supporting documents into the Files area, or click to browse
- Close the signal — once your review is complete, click Close Alert and select a close reason. The button stays disabled until the signal is assigned and its category confirmed; if either is missing, the page tells you which
You can also Request assessment to trigger a full EFI risk assessment for the linked institution, or Download Audit PDF to export the signal and its activity log for compliance records.
Navigating from Entities
When viewing signal cases from an entity's detail page (via the counterparties or entities list), a Back to List button appears at the top. The list is automatically filtered to show only signals for that entity. This is useful when investigating a specific counterparty's adverse media history.