Politically Exposed Person (PEP)
An individual who is, or has been, entrusted with a prominent public function — a head of state, senior politician, or senior military official, for example — along with their family members and close associates. PEPs pose a higher risk of corruption because of their access to public funds, not because of any allegation against them.
PEP status is graded, not binary. DeRisk Hub classifies positions into three tiers — Tier 1 covers national executive power and judiciary heads, Tier 2 covers national-level office without direct executive control, Tier 3 covers sub-national and local office — and a person inherits the highest tier across every office they have ever held, because risk follows the most sensitive access ever granted, not the current job title. Whether that PEP is "foreign" or "domestic" also matters and is relative to the screening institution, not to the PEP: the same office-holder is a foreign PEP to one bank and a domestic PEP to another.
A PEP match is not a prohibition and does not itself block a relationship the way a sanctions match does — it triggers enhanced due diligence (senior management approval, source-of-wealth checks, enhanced monitoring), and the relationship generally proceeds on that basis. There is also no fixed expiry: FATF sets no automatic time limit on PEP status after someone leaves office, while the EU and UK set a floor of at least 12 months before a risk-based reassessment can even be considered — "once a PEP, always a PEP" is a defensible policy choice, not a regulatory requirement.