High Risk Assessment Specialist

Role & Job purpose

As a Risk Assessment Specialist, you will play a critical role in ensuring Wise's adherence to regulatory and compliance standards. You will be responsible for mitigating risks associated with high risk customers, while maintaining compliance with AML/CTF regulations, and internal policies according to Wise's risk appetite. The Risk Assessment Specialist has an advanced understanding of inherent risks tied with complex business structures, various customer types and activities, country-specific risks and their appropriate mitigating strategies. This role is a great opportunity for people who are interested in deepening their expertise in the KYC/AML domain.

Job Responsibilities

• Act as an end point for all escalations from other compliance operations teams, assessing customers' risks and applying risk based approach methodologies;
• Mentor and consult other compliance operations teams and act as a subject matter expert in complex cases;
• Perform risk assessment and enhanced due diligence on complex and high risk customers, document and provide thorough analysis on potential risks and apply appropriate mitigation measures by analyzing their business activities, compliance programs and controls;
• Review and analyze documentation, such as AML, Sanctions, EDD, KYC, and Acceptable Use policies (customers under review), comparing them against Wise's policies and internal risk-based approach;
• Assess the customer's potential reputational and financial crime risk to Wise from Sanctions, PEP, and adverse media perspective;
• Coming up with new and better risk mitigation methods and improving our compliance framework and controls while working closely with Product and FinCrime;
• Escalate and report compliance concerns to Financial Crime Oversight and other compliance teams where necessary;
• Communicate with internal and external partners/stakeholders to facilitate scalable, compliant business onboarding growth;
• Work closely with other functions to on-board high risk companies, update on review statuses, communicate compliance concerns, and answer queries and concerns from relevant stakeholders;
• Work with product teams, operational leads, and compliance teams to manage operational impact of changes, increase operational efficiencies, and improve the customer experience;
• Be accountable for the quality assurance of the Risk Assessment team, taking decisions within our policy framework, and working with compliance to evolve processes;
• Distill concerns or issues identified from relevant operational incidents and report these findings to senior management with recommended actions to address deficiencies;
• Support team leads on implementation and delivery of ad-hoc project work, participate in enhancing the compliance management knowledge of colleagues;
• Assist the team at various deep dives and audits at regional level when required.

Qualifications

• Excellent verbal and written English skills (additional language skills are a plus) with the ability to clearly articulate your thoughts;
• A minimum of 3+ years of relevant industry experience, ideally in financial services, compliance roles or at a financial services regulator;
• Work autonomously within a limited variety of well-defined procedures and practices (not necessarily standardized);
• Ability to take difficult decisions, work with uncertainty, deal with unknowns, and coordinate various sources of information within and outside the organization;
• Ability to take decisions and apply risk-based approach at your work
• Capable of identifying gaps in policies and processes and liaise as necessary with the team, other business units and stakeholders to resolve relevant issues;
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, strong organizational skills, attention to detail, analytical abilities, and ability to adhere to strict deadlines in a fast paced and high pressure environment;
• Punctual, resourceful, proactive, enthusiastic and willing to get things done;
• Ability to work in a diverse work environment which requires collaboration, partnership and transparency;
• Understanding of regional and global regulatory requirements and essentials of risk based approach;
• Strong analytical and problem solving capabilities;
• Strong stakeholder management and interpersonal skills;
• analytical skills, with the ability to provide practical and realistic solutions for minimizing risk;
• Comfortable working in a rapidly changing and complex work environment.

Nice to have:

• Education: Bachelor's degree in Finance, Business Administration, Law, or related field
• Certifications: ICA, CAMS, or equivalent certification (EDD/AML focused)