Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Integrity Analyst

🎯 Role Definition

As an Integrity Analyst, you will lead proactive investigations and monitoring activities that protect the organization from financial crime, fraud, compliance breaches, and reputational harm. This role combines investigative rigor, data-driven analysis, and stakeholder collaboration to detect, triage, and remediate suspicious activity across products and channels. The Integrity Analyst is responsible for applying policy, model outputs, and manual review to make defensible disposition decisions, escalate actionable matters, and drive continuous improvement in controls, rules, and processes.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Junior Fraud Analyst / Transaction Monitoring Analyst
Compliance Analyst or AML Analyst
KYC/Onboarding Analyst or Operations Analyst

Advancement To:

Senior Integrity Analyst / Senior Investigations Analyst
AML Investigator or Fraud Program Manager
Compliance Manager / Head of Financial Crime Prevention

Lateral Moves:

Data Analyst / Data Scientist within Risk
Policy & Controls Analyst
Regulatory Reporting or Audit Specialist

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Conduct end-to-end investigations of alerts and referrals from transaction monitoring, fraud detection systems, and internal reports, documenting evidence, analysis, and final disposition with clear rationale aligned to policy and regulatory requirements.
Triage high-volume alert queues using risk-based prioritization and investigation playbooks to meet SLA targets while maintaining accuracy and auditability of decisions.
Perform complex case analysis that integrates transactional data, customer onboarding information, communications records, and external intelligence to identify patterns indicative of fraud, money laundering, sanctions evasion, or policy abuse.
Execute enhanced due diligence (EDD) and Know Your Customer (KYC) reviews for high-risk accounts and counterparties, verifying identity, source of funds, business purpose, and beneficial ownership.
Prepare and submit Suspicious Activity Reports (SAR/STR) and other regulatory filings as required, ensuring timeliness, completeness, and defensible narratives suitable for regulators and law enforcement use.
Maintain case management records and ensure all investigations include provenance of data, evidence chains, and version control, meeting internal audit and regulatory retention requirements.
Tune and validate rules, scenarios, and thresholds in transaction monitoring systems to reduce false positives while preserving detection of meaningful risk, collaborating with model owners and data science teams.
Develop, test, and document control changes, including new detection rules, automated remediation flows, and block flows, ensuring appropriate approvals and rollback plans.
Conduct root cause analysis on recurring issues and alert-to-true positive conversion rates to recommend process and system changes that materially reduce risk and increase efficiency.
Collaborate with data engineering and data science to enhance data quality, instrumentation, and feature development that improve model performance and investigation efficacy.
Provide timely escalations to legal, senior compliance, and executive stakeholders for high-impact or novel issues, delivering succinct briefings and recommended actions.
Support cross-border and sanctions screening investigations by leveraging sanctions lists, PEP databases, and adverse media screening, coordinating with global teams to ensure consistent outcomes.
Drive remediation and account actions (blocks, holds, account closures, transaction reversals) in partnership with operations and product teams, documenting rationale and approvals.
Conduct periodic reviews of customer segments and product portfolios to identify underserved surveillance needs and propose targeted monitoring strategies.
Mentor and train junior analysts on investigation standards, operational workflows, and the use of case management systems to build team capacity and quality.
Coordinate with fraud prevention, cybersecurity, trust & safety, and legal teams on incidents that overlap functions, ensuring unified response and evidence preservation.
Produce and present regular metrics, trend analysis, and investigative insights to compliance leadership to inform risk appetite, resource allocation, and policy updates.
Maintain up-to-date knowledge of AML/CTF, sanctions, regulatory developments (e.g., OFAC, FinCEN, FCA), and industry best practices to keep detection and reporting programs aligned with evolving requirements.
Participate in internal and external audits, regulatory examinations, and remediation programs, providing documentation, process narratives, and corrective action plans as required.
Lead small projects to implement process automation, playbook improvements, or tool integrations that materially improve investigation throughput and accuracy.
Evaluate third-party vendor tools and data providers for sanctions screening, adverse media, identity verification, and case management, participating in vendor selection and ongoing performance reviews.
Ensure consistent application of policies across channels, escalating policy gaps and drafting policy updates or standard operating procedures to reduce ambiguity in analyst decision-making.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.
Assist in building and maintaining investigation playbooks and knowledge base articles.
Provide stakeholder-facing training sessions on compliance trends and fraud typologies.
Support cross-functional tabletop exercises and incident response rehearsals.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Transaction monitoring and alert triage expertise with experience using enterprise case management platforms and AML systems.
Strong investigative techniques: chain-of-evidence documentation, corroboration of facts, link analysis, and timeline construction.
AML/CTF compliance knowledge including SAR/STR filing processes, sanctions screening (OFAC/EU/UN), and PEP screening best practices.
KYC/CDD/EDD execution experience, including beneficial ownership and source-of-funds analysis.
Proficiency with data analysis tools and languages such as SQL, Excel (advanced formulas and pivot tables), and one or more scripting languages (Python or R) for ad-hoc data pulls and automation.
Familiarity with data visualization tools (Power BI, Tableau, Looker) to produce dashboards and investigative reports.
Experience with detection tuning, rules engineering, and understanding model outputs for transactional risk scoring.
Knowledge of case management software and workflow automation (e.g., NICE Actimize, FIS, FCRM, or similar systems).
Experience creating and maintaining policies, playbooks, and standard operating procedures for investigations and compliance.
Ability to produce regulatory-quality written reports and executive summaries suitable for auditors and regulators.
Basic understanding of identity verification and fraud prevention technologies (device intelligence, biometric checks, IP/geolocation).
Comfortable using SQL-based query tools and data warehouses to extract and validate investigative data.

Soft Skills

Exceptional analytical and critical thinking with a methodical, evidence-driven approach to problem solving.
Strong written and verbal communication; able to summarize complex investigations clearly for legal, business, and regulatory stakeholders.
High attention to detail and commitment to accuracy and auditability.
Good judgment and ability to make defensible decisions under ambiguity and time pressure.
Collaborative mindset with experience influencing cross-functional teams and building credibility.
Resilience and adaptability in a fast-paced and evolving regulatory environment.
Project management skills — able to prioritize competing demands and manage multiple investigations to SLA.
Ethical mindset and discretion when handling sensitive personal and financial information.
Continuous improvement orientation; proactive in identifying process efficiencies and automation opportunities.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor's degree in Finance, Economics, Criminal Justice, Accounting, Computer Science, Data Analytics, or similar fields.

Preferred Education:

Master’s degree in a related discipline or advanced compliance/forensic certification.
Professional certifications such as CAMS (Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist), CFE (Certified Fraud Examiner), CRCM (Certified Regulatory Compliance Manager), or equivalent.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Finance, Accounting, or Economics
Criminal Justice, Law, or Forensic Accounting
Computer Science, Data Science, or Information Systems
Risk Management or Compliance

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 2–6 years in investigations, AML, fraud, compliance, transaction monitoring, or related fields.

Preferred:

3–7+ years with demonstrable experience in financial services, fintech, payments, or e-commerce investigations.
Proven track record of managing end-to-end investigations, regulatory reporting, and improving detection controls.
Experience working with cross-border compliance issues and global sanctions regimes.