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Senior Sanctions Associate

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Senior Sanctions Associate

  • Location:

    City of London

  • Sector:

    LMA UK Compliance & Financial Crime

  • Job type:

    Permanent

  • Salary:

    Negotiable

  • Contact:

    Nikolai Balzer

  • Contact email:

    jobs@lmarecruitment.co.uk

  • Job ref:

    BBBH420653_1684833111

  • Published:

    12 days ago

  • Expiry date:

    2023-05-30

  • Client:

    LMA

Job Description
Our client, a dynamic and sizeable Wholesale Bank are looking for a Senior Sanctions Associate. This is a newly created role and part of the First Line of Defense Financial Crime Risk & Controls (FCRC) team. This person will be responsible for identifying, investigating and monitoring relationships that pose a money laundering, terrorist financing or sanctions risk in support of all legal and regulatory requirements relating to anti-money laundering (AML), counter terrorism financing and sanctions.

You will will partner closely with the business and product areas as well as the KYC Centre of Excellence team (covering Onboarding & Refresh) in the UK. The role will also have a close working relationship with the Second Line of Defense (SLOD) UK Financial Crime team.

The Senior Sanctions Associate, Special Approvals will be responsible for:

    • Assisting with the implementation and embedding of the financial crime framework to support the business and ensuring the firm is compliant and protected from financial crime risks.
    • Reviewing client relationships that meet the bank's high risk business categories and geographies and performing reviews of existing clients and prospects.
    • Serving as an SME for Commercial Bank Relationship Teams to aid in identification of prospects & existing clients that may have increased sanctions or AML risk due to business model or geographic location.
    • Reviewing and responding to sanctions related queries from the First Line of Defense and staying abreast of relevant sanctions law and regulations.
    • Providing expertise in assessing prelaunch or emerging business models to align with internal requirements for enhanced due diligence and approval.
    • Assist clients/prospects to ensure compliance with the bank's sanctions and high risk sector requirements.
    • Working closely with FCRC colleagues responsible for transaction and party screening, Alert Management (incl. Fraud) and Transaction Monitoring.
    • Review and submission of papers to Reputational Risk and Client Selection Forum where required for sanctions related reviews.
    • Assisting with internal scheduled and triggered refresh review escalations regarding client matters (including ability to approve or decline exception requests).
    • Escalation of issues in a timely manner for review and resolution in relation to financial crime including knowledge of SAR escalation and supporting SLOD UKFC with OFSI reporting.
    • Building strong relationships through effective influencing and decision-making skills.
    • Supporting change in the right way and recommending enhancements to processes and procedures to ensure the firm remains compliant whilst aligning to a risk-based approach.
    • Maintaining current industry awareness and demonstrating awareness and competence in relation to regulatory obligations.
    • Provision of sanctions training (with support from UKFC) in response to any training needs identified from ongoing activities.
    • Providing guidance and direction to FLOD colleagues to ensure they remain protected from financial crime risks and embedding an effective financial crime risk culture.


The Expertise You Have

    • Strong in depth knowledge of US, UK, EU and UN Sanctions regimes to ensure awareness and application of regulatory requirements.
    • Solid experience related to financial crimes including Sanctions, AML, KYC, EDD and Fraud risk management processes
    • Good understanding of the wide range of business sectors and models within which the bank's clients operate and ability to design and evaluate effectiveness of controls embedded within business processes.
    • Strong understanding of the compliance and regulatory frameworks that apply to financial institutions regulated by the FCA and PRA in the UK.
    • Ability to work independently and as part of a team, take initiative and have strong verbal and written communication skills.
    • Good time management and attention to detail are critical to this position.
    • Good judgement, analytical, research, organizational, and project management skills.
    • Flexibility in learning new topics, handling change and deadlines.
    • A professional certification in Financial Crime Prevention from a recognised body such as ICA or ACAMS would be beneficial.

Strong understanding of requisite Microsoft Office applications and ability to learn new internal systems quickly.

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