Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Global Bank Administration Analyst
💰 $ - $
🎯 Role Definition
The Global Bank Administration Analyst is a mission-critical operations and controls professional responsible for administering client accounts, supporting global payments and cash management, ensuring regulatory and compliance adherence (KYC/AML/sanctions), executing trade and treasury operations, and coordinating across front-office, middle-office, compliance and vendor partners. This role balances day-to-day operational execution with continuous process improvement, root-cause analysis, and timely escalation of risks to minimize financial, operational and reputational exposure for a global banking institution.
Key SEO phrases: Global Bank Administration Analyst, bank operations analyst, payments analyst, KYC analyst, treasury operations, global banking administration.
📈 Career Progression
Typical Career Path
Entry Point From:
- Operations Associate / Operations Analyst (Banking)
- Client Onboarding Specialist or KYC Analyst
- Trade Finance or Cash Management Analyst
Advancement To:
- Senior Bank Administration Analyst / Lead Operations Analyst
- Global Operations Manager (Payments / Treasury)
- Client Operations Team Lead / Head of Onboarding & KYC
Lateral Moves:
- Regulatory Reporting Analyst
- Risk & Controls Analyst (Operational Risk)
- Relationship Manager Support (Front-to-Back)
Core Responsibilities
Primary Functions
- Manage end-to-end client onboarding and account maintenance for global institutional and corporate clients, including account set-up, signatory verification, documentation collection, and coordination with Relationship Management and Legal to meet Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) requirements.
- Execute and monitor cross-border payments and SWIFT message flows (MT/MX), ensuring accurate routing, correct currency handling, timely settlement and resolution of payment exceptions in partnership with correspondent banks and payments vendors.
- Perform daily cash management and liquidity monitoring activities: reconcile intraday cash positions, investigate variances, execute sweeps, and report liquidity metrics to treasury and global stakeholders to maintain funding and regulatory limits.
- Conduct client due diligence renewals, periodic reviews, and sanctions screening escalations; prepare remediation plans, maintain audit trails, and liaise with Compliance for suspicious activity reporting (SAR/STR) as required.
- Reconcile trade finance transactions including letters of credit (LCs), guarantees, collections and documentary credits; validate documents, process amendments, and coordinate with trade desks and confirming banks to mitigate settlement risk.
- Investigate and resolve operational breaks and exceptions across payments, securities, and cash reconciliations; perform root cause analysis, implement corrective actions, and update process documentation and standard operating procedures (SOPs).
- Support regulatory reporting obligations (e.g., CTR/STR filing support, FATCA/CRS documentation collection, local regulatory returns) by compiling data, validating inputs, and coordinating with Regulatory Reporting and Compliance teams.
- Maintain and update client relationship and product data in core banking systems, CRM platforms and GRC tools; ensure data integrity for KYC/CDD, transactional limits, and counterparty master records.
- Create, review and own operational control matrices, risk assessments and reconciliation frameworks; execute control testing and remediation for internal audits and external regulators.
- Coordinate with internal and external stakeholders across Front Office, Middle Office, IT, Compliance, Legal, Custody, and external correspondent banks to ensure seamless onboarding, product launches, and issue resolution.
- Oversee vendor and correspondent bank relationships for outsourced operational processes; manage SLAs, monitor vendor performance, and coordinate contractual and operational changes.
- Prepare daily, weekly and monthly operational reports and dashboards for senior management summarizing exceptions, operational KPIs, SLA performance, and remediation progress.
- Support systems implementations and enhancements (payments, trade, treasury systems) as subject matter expert for operations; define business requirements, conduct user acceptance testing (UAT), and lead process change rollout and training.
- Process and validate corporate actions, interest and fee accruals, and commission calculations for corporate and institutional accounts, ensuring timely posting and client reporting accuracy.
- Manage onboarding and lifecycle maintenance of high-risk clients, PEPs, and cross-border accounts; coordinate enhanced due diligence, PEP screening escalation, and senior management approvals.
- Ensure adherence to global and local regulatory requirements (Basel, AML laws, GDPR/data privacy) and internal policies by applying consistent controls, documenting exceptions, and escalating compliance breaches immediately.
- Handle inbound and outbound client inquiries and escalations related to account setup, transaction status, and documentation, providing clear communication and resolution within defined SLAs.
- Perform margin and collateral administration support for trading clients when applicable: reconcile margin calls, monitor collateral sufficiency, and escalate margin deficiencies.
- Conduct periodic quality reviews of operational activities, deliver training to junior analysts, and lead continuous improvement initiatives using Lean/Six Sigma methodologies to streamline processes and reduce operational risk.
- Manage fee processing, tariff application, and dispute resolution for client billing and transaction charges; liaise with Finance and Billing teams to ensure correct invoices and reconciliations.
- Document and maintain comprehensive operational procedures, runbooks and knowledge base articles to ensure business continuity and enable efficient onboarding of new team members.
- Support internal and external audits by preparing evidence, explaining workflows, demonstrating control activities and ensuring timely remediation of findings.
Secondary Functions
- Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis for operational metrics, compliance checks and management reporting.
- Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap by highlighting data quality issues, recommending data governance improvements, and participating in remediation initiatives.
- Collaborate with business units to translate data and operational requirements into engineering and process specifications.
- Participate in sprint planning, agile ceremonies and change control governance within the data engineering and technology teams to prioritize operational improvements and system fixes.
- Assist with change management communications, training materials and transition plans for new product rollouts or process changes impacting global operations.
- Engage in periodic benchmarking and vendor selection processes to improve cost efficiency and operational resilience.
- Conduct scenario and contingency planning for business continuity and disaster recovery related to critical operational platforms and vendor dependencies.
Required Skills & Competencies
Hard Skills (Technical)
- KYC/AML Compliance and Sanctions Screening — thorough knowledge of client due diligence, enhanced due diligence (EDD), and sanctions lists (OFAC, UN, EU, HMT).
- Payments operations and SWIFT message handling (MT/MX), cross-border payments, FX settlement mechanics and correspondent banking flows.
- Treasury and Cash Management — intraday liquidity monitoring, bank sweeps, notional pooling, and short-term funding processes.
- Trade Finance operations — documentary credits, collections, guarantees, matching and discrepancy resolution.
- Regulatory knowledge — FATCA/CRS, AML regulations, Basel operational requirements, GDPR and local banking regulations.
- Reconciliation tools and practices — account reconciliation, exception management, and break resolution technology (e.g., FIS, Fiserv, BlackLine).
- Core banking systems, CRM and GRC platforms — experience with systems such as Finacle, Temenos, Murex, Salesforce, Actimize or equivalent.
- Advanced Excel (pivot tables, VLOOKUP/XLOOKUP, macros) and working knowledge of SQL for data extraction and validation.
- Reporting and BI tools — Power BI, Tableau or similar for dashboard creation and operational reporting.
- Documentation, SOP development and process mapping tools — Visio, Confluence, or equivalent.
- Vendor and SLA management — contract oversight, KPI measurement, and vendor remediation.
- UAT and systems implementation experience — writing test cases, conducting testing cycles, and documenting defects.
Soft Skills
- Strong stakeholder management and cross-functional collaboration: ability to liaise with front office, compliance, IT and external partners.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills for clear, concise reporting and client-facing communications.
- High attention to detail with a strong focus on data accuracy, completeness and auditability.
- Analytical mindset with problem-solving and root cause analysis capabilities.
- Ability to prioritize workload in a high-volume, time-sensitive environment and meet strict SLAs.
- Integrity and discretion in handling confidential client and firm information.
- Process improvement orientation with a practical approach to simplifying complex workflows.
- Resilience and adaptability to changing regulatory and business requirements.
- Coaching and mentoring capabilities to develop junior team members and transfer institutional knowledge.
- Project management skills with the ability to coordinate small-to-medium change initiatives.
Education & Experience
Educational Background
Minimum Education:
- Bachelor's degree in Finance, Business Administration, Economics, Accounting, or related field (or equivalent work experience).
Preferred Education:
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Finance, Business Administration, Accounting, Risk Management, or related discipline.
- Professional certifications such as CAMS (Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist), ACAMS, CCAF, or relevant banking operations certifications are an advantage.
Relevant Fields of Study:
- Finance
- Business Administration
- Economics
- Accounting
- Risk Management
Experience Requirements
Typical Experience Range:
- 2–6 years in banking operations, treasury, payments, trade finance, or KYC/AML roles for mid-level roles; 5+ years for senior roles.
Preferred:
- Experience working in a global banking environment with cross-border operations, correspondent banking and multi-jurisdictional regulatory exposure.
- Demonstrated experience with payments/SWIFT, trade finance processing, or treasury operations; prior experience in compliance or operational risk is highly valued.
- Proven track record in process improvement, systems implementation and operational control frameworks.