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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for AML Compliance Analyst

💰 $ - $

ComplianceAMLRisk

🎯 Role Definition

The AML Compliance Analyst is responsible for detecting, investigating, and escalating suspicious activity to protect the organization from money laundering, terrorist financing, sanctions violations, and other financial crime risks. This role operates within a risk-based AML framework, collaborates closely with KYC, Fraud, Legal, and Risk teams, and supports regulatory compliance for BSA/AML, sanctions, and local/global financial crime regulations. Key responsibilities include transaction monitoring, customer due diligence (CDD/EDD), sanctions screening, suspicious activity reporting (SAR/STR), remediation, policy compliance, and continuous program improvement.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Junior Compliance Analyst / BSA Analyst
  • Financial Crime Analyst / Fraud Analyst
  • KYC Analyst or Customer Onboarding Specialist

Advancement To:

  • Senior AML Analyst / AML Investigator
  • AML Team Lead or AML Manager
  • BSA Officer / MLRO (Money Laundering Reporting Officer)

Lateral Moves:

  • Financial Crime Risk Specialist
  • Regulatory Compliance Analyst
  • Fraud Prevention / Investigations Analyst

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Conduct detailed investigations of alerts generated by transaction monitoring systems, sanctions screening engines, and watchlist matches, documenting findings clearly and making reasoned recommendations for escalation or closure.
  • Review customer profiles and transactional behavior to detect patterns consistent with money laundering, terrorist financing, structuring, or other suspicious conduct, applying a risk-based approach aligned with organizational policies and regulatory expectations.
  • Prepare, draft, and submit Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs/STRs) and other regulatory filings in accordance with jurisdictional requirements and internal escalation protocols, ensuring accuracy, completeness, and timely submission.
  • Execute Know Your Customer (KYC) reviews and Customer Due Diligence (CDD) activities, including onboarding screening, periodic reviews, enhanced due diligence (EDD) for high-risk customers, and remediation of KYC documentation gaps.
  • Perform sanctions screening and watchlist management (including OFAC, EU, UN, HMT, and other local lists), investigate potential matches, de-duplicate false positives, and recommend true matches for escalation to sanctions officers.
  • Triage and prioritize alerts from automated monitoring tools using scenario knowledge, transaction context, and customer risk scoring, reducing false positives and ensuring efficient use of investigative resources.
  • Tune transaction monitoring rules and thresholds in partnership with model owners and IT to optimize detection coverage while minimizing false positives, documenting rationale and testing outcomes for changes.
  • Maintain and update case management records in AML systems (e.g., NICE Actimize, Fiserv, Verint, SAS AML), ensuring case notes, evidence, decisions, and audit trails meet regulatory and internal audit standards.
  • Perform Enhanced Due Diligence (EDD) investigations for high-risk entities, politically exposed persons (PEPs), cross-border transactions, correspondent banking relationships, and complex corporate ownership structures, including beneficial ownership research.
  • Conduct adverse media and open-source intelligence (OSINT) searches to support investigations and KYC assessments, summarizing findings and linking adverse information to risk ratings and escalation decisions.
  • Support onboarding teams by reviewing new client documentation for AML red flags, advising on risk mitigation steps, and approving or rejecting accounts based on CDD and risk appetite.
  • Collaborate with Legal, Sanctions, Fraud, and Business units to manage escalations, sanctions hits, regulatory queries, and law enforcement requests, ensuring fast, defensible responses.
  • Participate in regulatory examinations and internal audits by preparing documentation, responding to information requests, presenting investigative methodology, and implementing remediation actions.
  • Develop, review, and update AML policies, procedures, and internal controls to reflect evolving regulatory guidance, industry best practices, and lessons learned from investigations and audits.
  • Generate and deliver periodic management reports and KPIs on alert volumes, SAR filings, trends, escalation rates, false positive rates, and remediation progress to senior management and risk committees.
  • Provide subject-matter expertise and training to business and compliance teams on AML obligations, red flags, sanctions screening processes, and proper recordkeeping to raise organizational awareness and reduce compliance risk.
  • Conduct risk assessments for new products, services, geographies, and customer segments to identify AML/CTF exposures and recommend controls or mitigation strategies during product development and change management.
  • Manage remediation projects to address historical KYC deficiencies, surveillance gaps, and compliance findings, coordinating cross-functional resources and tracking closure of corrective actions.
  • Review and respond to complex transaction monitoring model results, escalating model governance issues, validation concerns, and tuning requests to model owners and analytics teams.
  • Liaise with third-party vendors and technology partners to validate data quality, monitoring rule performance, and configuration of AML systems; participate in vendor risk assessments and acceptance testing.
  • Maintain up-to-date knowledge of AML regulations, sanctions lists, typologies, and industry trends, proactively assessing impacts on the AML program and recommending adjustments to policies and monitoring.
  • Support cross-border AML investigations, including interaction with foreign branches and correspondent institutions, ensuring coordinated response, data sharing, and regulatory compliance across jurisdictions.
  • Document decisions, rationales, and remediation steps in a defensible manner to support potential legal proceedings, regulatory inquiries, or law enforcement cooperation requests.
  • Assist in the development of automated reporting and dashboards (e.g., Power BI, Tableau, Excel) to visualize trends, highlight risk hotspots, and communicate program performance metrics to stakeholders.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis to identify emerging money laundering patterns, typologies, and trends.
  • Contribute to the organization's AML data strategy and roadmap, advising on data sources, quality improvements, and integration points for enhanced monitoring.
  • Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements for AML tooling, rulesets, and reporting capabilities.
  • Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the AML technology and data engineering teams to ensure timely delivery of monitoring and reporting enhancements.
  • Mentor junior analysts and conduct quality reviews of investigative decisions to ensure consistency and compliance with policy and standards.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Transaction monitoring systems: experience with NICE Actimize, Fiserv AML Risk Manager, SAS AML, Oracle Mantas, or similar enterprise AML platforms.
  • Sanctions and watchlist screening: practical knowledge of OFAC, EU, UN, HMT, and commercial screening solutions (e.g., World-Check, Dow Jones).
  • KYC/CDD/EDD processes: strong understanding of customer onboarding, periodic reviews, beneficial ownership identification, and EDD for high-risk clients.
  • Suspicious Activity Reporting: ability to draft SARs/STRs and work within regulatory filing systems while meeting timing and confidentiality rules.
  • AML regulations and directives: working knowledge of BSA/AML, AMLD, FATF recommendations, OFAC requirements, and local compliance statutes.
  • Case management tools and workflows: hands-on experience managing investigation case files, audit trails, and documentation in AML platforms.
  • Data analysis and SQL: ability to query transaction and customer datasets, perform data validation, and derive insights to support investigations.
  • Excel and reporting: advanced Excel skills (pivot tables, VLOOKUP/XLOOKUP, macros), plus experience with Power BI or Tableau for AML dashboards.
  • Risk assessment methodology: proficiency in developing and applying risk-rating frameworks, customer risk scoring, and product/geo risk analysis.
  • OSINT and adverse media tools: familiarity with open-source research methods and tools for screening adverse media and reputational risks.
  • Regulatory exam preparation: experience preparing documentation, responding to requests, and remediating examiner findings.
  • Basic scripting or data manipulation (Python/R) — helpful for large-scale data pulls, enrichment, or automation projects.

Soft Skills

  • Analytical thinking: strong investigative mindset with the ability to synthesize disparate data into clear risk-based conclusions.
  • Communication: clear, concise written and verbal communication skills for regulatory filings, management reporting, and stakeholder collaboration.
  • Attention to detail: meticulous documentation habits to create defensible investigation trails and support audit requirements.
  • Judgement and decision-making: sound risk judgment when escalating, closing, or filing on suspicious activity.
  • Teamwork and collaboration: ability to work cross-functionally with Legal, Operations, Risk, and Technology teams to implement controls and remediation.
  • Time management and prioritization: manage high volumes of alerts and competing deadlines while maintaining quality.
  • Integrity and discretion: handle confidential information appropriately and maintain strict adherence to privacy and legal obligations.
  • Adaptability: comfortable working in a rapidly changing regulatory and technology environment and learning new tools.
  • Coaching and mentoring: ability to guide junior analysts and promote consistent investigative standards across the team.
  • Problem solving: pragmatic approach to resolving data quality issues, tuning monitoring scenarios, and implementing process improvements.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, Criminal Justice, Economics, Business Administration, Information Systems, or related field.

Preferred Education:

  • Bachelor’s degree plus professional certifications (e.g., ACAMS/CAMS, CRCM, CFE) or a Master’s degree in a relevant discipline.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Finance
  • Accounting
  • Criminal Justice
  • Economics
  • Information Systems / Data Analytics

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 2–5 years in AML, financial crime investigations, BSA compliance, or related roles.

Preferred: 3–7 years with demonstrated experience in transaction monitoring, SAR filing, sanctions screening, KYC/EDD, and working with enterprise AML systems; experience in regulated financial institutions or FinTech environments is highly desirable.

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