The Financial Crime Risk Team 

We’re part of the Risk Organisation and are at the forefront of GoCardless’ global expansion.  We ensure that GoCardless adopts, implements and maintains innovative and appropriate processes and controls, paving the way for our company to deliver superb products in a compliant manner.

The Role

As the Second Line of Defence (2LoD) subject matter expert, the Financial Crime Risk Manager will report directly to the Group MLRO and will play both a regional and global role. In this role, you will be primarily tasked with building and maintaining effective AML/CTF, ABC, and sanctions systems and controls to ensure compliance with laws and regulations in various GoCardless locations.

This is a 12 month fixed term contract.

What excites you

• Executing the firm’s annual financial crime Enterprise-wide Risk Assessments, including risk identification, data analysis, inherent risk assessment and control evaluation; 
• Closely follow legal, compliance, and regulatory developments in relation to AML/CTF, ABC, and sanctions in the Fintech industry, to ensure our processes keep pace;
• Drafting annual external reports to regulatory authorities, and liaise with the FCA, NCA and other external agencies where applicable;
• New products, markets business partnerships/intiatives risk assessments and programme updates;
• Drafting financial crime management information and periodic reports to senior management, analysing trends and recommending enhancements to first line controls; 
• Delivering targeted financial crime training to the Compliance Operations team and Sales team on areas that are identified as requiring improvement;
• Advising on CDD escalations based on internal policies and procedures;
• Monitoring and responding to AML / Sanctions-related escalations in JIRA;
• Reviewing and approving of high-risk customers at onboarding (e.g. PEPs);
• Reviewing and approving of requests for waivers, dispensations and minor policy exceptions from the first line defence;
• Promoting a culture of good financial crime management across the firm;
• Covering MLRO annual leave / absences
• Supporting on the Financial Crime Risk roadmap projects to design and deploy controls over new products, new markets, and enhancements throughout the company;
• Support the wider Compliance based on capacity, need and expertise.

 What excites us

• You have 5+ years’ experience in financial crime within the 2 LoD of an FCA regulated financial services firm or within consultancy;
• You have strong working knowledge of regulatory frameworks, guidelines, and requirements across the UK, US, EU, New Zealand, Australia, and/or Canada, as well as bodies like the FATF, Wolfsberg Group, etc.;
• You have experience in designing internal controls from scratch and driving their implementation, including automation where feasible;
• You have worked within a fast growing, scale-up business;
• You have experience conducting AML/CTF and sanctions compliance monitoring reviews, including model calibration and validation;
• You have exceptional analytical, writing and presentation skills;
• You have a 'sleeves-rolled-up' approach to your work.

Base salary range: £46,400 - £69,600

Base salary ranges are based on role, job level, location, and market data.  Please note that whilst we strive to offer competitive compensation, our approach is to pay between the minimum and the mid-point (£46,400 - £58,000) of the pay range until performance can be assessed in role. Offers will take into account level of experience, interview assessment, budgets and parity between you and fellow employees at GoCardless doing similar work.

The Role

The Assurance Manager is a key role in the Financial Crime Compliance team, that reports directly into the Group MLRO and will be responsible for operating the second line oversight framework. The role will be responsible for monitoring and testing our financial crime risk controls, working with our auditors to ensure that audit reviews go smoothly, and will be responsible for driving closure of open issues.

This is a hands-on role that has both a long-term, strategic focus as well as getting the day-to-day things done.

What excites you:

• Providing assurance of our financial crime risk controls through regular testing, thematic reviews, targeted deep-dive reviews, and data analysis — assessing adequacy of GoCardless’ financial crime policies, procedures and systems.
• Planning, preparing, and executing the end-to-end annual Financial Crime Compliance Assurance program.
• Drafting reports that outline findings and corresponding action plans to mitigate issues found during reviews.
• Pulling, and then slicing and dicing large data (advanced Excel etc.) to identify and monitor risk indicators.
• Managing and/or overseeing day-to-day regulatory/external/internal exams related to financial crime — including preparation, coordination, and response activities.
• Logging and tracking to completion of assurance, audit, self-identified and other related risks and issues, to validate remediation efforts, as well as escalate to relevant stakeholders where appropriate.
• Supporting the development, introduction and completion of project and business solutions to resolve any financial crime related matters.
• Delivering targeted financial crime training and conducting root cause "lessons learned" sessions for the Compliance Operations and Sales teams to drive continuous improvement in areas identified during reviews.
• Developing cross-functional skills within the global team and demonstrating a proactive willingness to support, own, and execute tasks from start to finish.
• Supporting the wider Regulatory Compliance Assurance team as required, providing insight and assistance to ensure firm-wide adherence to evolving regulatory standards globally.

What excites us:

• Deep understanding of risks and controls. Knowledge of ML/TF, KYC/CDD, and transaction monitoring is a plus.
• 4+ years’ experience in assurance or risk management (2LoD/3LoD/Audit). This is a 2LoD oversight-based role, distinct from operational 1LoD functions such as KYC/EDD, QA/QC, or Alert Investigation.
• Comfortable with developing methodology for testing the design and operating effectiveness of controls.
• Organised and have an ability to articulate and recommend practical remediations, and track issues to closure.
• Excellent project and stakeholder management.
• Have objective verbal and writing skills to write and communicate clear and concise assurance reports which are accessible to non-financial crime experts.
• Deliver targeted presentations that succinctly report on the effectiveness of our issue management process.
• Understanding of financial crime model calibration — knowledge of fuzzy matching logic and ‘tuning’ testing including AtL and BtL testing.

Base salary range: £46,400 - £69,600 

Base salary ranges are based on role, job level, location, and market data.  Please note that whilst we strive to offer competitive compensation, our approach is to pay between the minimum and the mid-point (£46,400 - £58,000) of the pay range until performance can be assessed in role. Offers will take into account level of experience, interview assessment, budgets and parity between you and fellow employees at GoCardless doing similar work.