FinCrime Operations Analyst - AML Investigations

Job description

As a FinCrime Operations Analyst in Sanctions or AML, you will play a role in safeguarding Wise from financial crime. Your primary responsibility will involve conducting reviews and making accurate decisions to escalate or discount alerts related to potential sanctions matches and suspicious activity. This includes, but is not limited to, analyzing transactions, customer data and account activity. By ensuring adherence to global sanctions regulations and anti-money laundering (AML) compliance, you will directly contribute to making our platform and services safer.

This role offers an excellent opportunity for individuals looking to develop foundational expertise in the dynamic fields of sanctions and AML compliance.

Job Responsibilities

Sanctions Screening and Investigation: Review and investigate potential matches generated by sanctions screening systems, conducting due diligence to determine if a true match exists. Escalate potential sanctions breaches to the appropriate teams in a timely manner via established channels and by following documented processes.

Monitoring

Analyse transaction data to identify unusual patterns or activities that may indicate money laundering, terrorist financing, or sanctions evasion. Conduct alert reviews, whether system-generated or internally escalated, focusing on specific transactions, customers or typologies. Your role is to triage actionable alerts that warrant further review, proactively identifying red flags, discrepancies, or other trends that may indicate potential financial crime issues, including but not limited to money laundering, terrorist financing, or sanctions evasion.

Regulatory Compliance

Stay up-to-date on changes to sanctions regulations (e.g., OFAC, EU, UK) and AML and due diligence laws and regulations. Assist in implementing changes to guidances and procedures to ensure compliance. Highlight any process inaccuracies or out-of-date issues and consistently follow established guidelines with high accuracy and incorporate updates cascaded within the team or wider function.

Documentation and Record Keeping

Maintain accurate and comprehensive records of alert reviews investigations, decisions, and supporting documentation including but not limited to decision rationale. Ensure compliance with data privacy regulations and internal data security protocols. Ensure timely internal escalation to other teams in strict accordance with Wise policies and guidelines.

Risk Assessment and Escalation

P erform and document risk assessments related to sanctions and AML. Escalate high-risk cases and potential compliance breaches, and suspicious activity, to the appropriate teams. Escalate incidents, high-risk customers, control issues, or material breaches to function’s leadership in a timely and precise manner, following established protocols.

Collaboration

Work closely with other teams, including KYC, Compliance, and Engineering, to enhance sanctions and AML controls. Develop and maintain productive and professional working relationships with colleagues, contributing to a positive and collaborative team environment. Participate in team meetings and training sessions.

Communication

Communicate clearly, professionally, and empathetically with customers via approved channels to obtain necessary details or clarifications for reviews, always upholding our high customer experience standards. A key part of this involves avoiding unnecessary customer contacts and preventing delayed case resolutions.

KPIs

Take a proactive approach to consistently achieve individual and team targets (KPIs, SLAs, QA), demonstrating a strong commitment to both quality and speed. This includes meeting deadlines reliably, optimizing processing times, and taking full ownership and accountability for all responsibilities to deliver exceptional results.

Trainings

Complete all company-assigned mandatory, refresher or ad hoc trainings on time and with diligence.

Other

Perform additional tasks as assigned by your lead, demonstrating adaptability and a proactive approach. This includes actively participating in meetings, training, and internal events to support broader team and company objectives.

Qualifications

Strong verbal and written communication skills in English, with the ability to produce clear, concise, accurate, and professional reports, summaries, and customer communications. Additional languages are a plus. A minimum of 1+ years of experience in Operations, preferably in sanctions compliance, AML, due diligence or a related field. Capable to maintain a high level of quality and accuracy, with a strong commitment to precise process adherence and meeting established standards, even when managing routine tasks or high workloads.

Ability to work independently and make decisions within well-defined procedures or apply a risk-based approach in your key tasks. Punctual, independent, proactive, and willing to get things done. Exceptionally inquisitive mind, always looking out for more information where available, but also able to cut through the noise. Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, strong organisational skills, attention to detail, analytical skills, and ability to adhere to strict KPIs in a fast-paced and high-pressure environment.

Ability to work autonomously within established procedures and practices. Capable of identifying gaps in policies and processes and providing detailed feedback, including examples when possible, through established communication channels. Flexible to work in shifts. We work when our customers need us the most including early mornings, day times, afternoons, late evenings, weekends and public holidays as per business needs.

Nice to have

Education: Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Business Administration, Law, or related field Certifications: ICA, CAMS, or equivalent certification (Sanctions/AML focused). Experience with sanctions screening and transaction monitoring systems.