Financial Crime Specialist

Let’s grow together!

A Platinum Investors in People employer and an award-winning UK bank, focused on growth. Our customers include savers and businesses across the UK and, working together, we use our specialist expertise to help them achieve their ambitions and build a sustainable future. If you’re an experienced Financial Crime Specialist looking for an opportunity to grow in a friendly environment, we’re looking for you!

We’re flexible, inclusive, committed to your wellbeing and passionate about you reaching your potential. Let’s grow together …

Job Purpose

 To identify and advise on Anti-Money Laundering, Counter Terrorist Financing and other Financial Crime issues ensuring regulation and legislation is adhered to at all times.

Conduct thorough investigations of suspicious activities, Fraud and transactions to identify potential financial crime  risks within the Bank. (For On-Boarding and in life customers)

Ability to work any financial crime enquiry/investigation that comes into the team, either internally or externally, from beginning-to -end.

We’ll provide ongoing training and support to help you understand the systems, but experience of Financial Crime on a digital platform and speaking to customers is key to success in this role.

You will work on a shift pattern to make sure we have enough cover on evenings and some weekends on Saturday.   

What you’ll do day to day

•Managing Financial Crime Related inquiries, from start to end.
 • Conduct customer due diligence (CDD) and Enhanced due diligence  (EDD) on  Paragon's customers and suppliers
• Conduct thorough investigations of suspicious activity , and transactions to identify potential threats to the bank.  
• Reviewing and advising on Paragon's High Risk customers and escalating where required
• Monitor and review alerts generated by a number of monitoring systems and escalate cases where necessary.
• Liaising with Law enforcement and other external  agencies to ensure Paragon is not subjected to Financial Crime.
• Work referrals made to Financial Crime Operations from both Internal & external sources from start to finish
• Complete fraud Investigations
• Review & Escalation of high-risk customers to the MLRO/DMLRO
• Complete Periodic Reviews (In-Life) and  support business areas with High-Risk Customer Risk Assessments (On-Boarding) approvals.
• Review all third parties being on-boarded, including intermediaries.
• Provide support, advice and collaborate with internal teams and liaise with external agencies to gather information , support investigations or provide assurance to proceed/retail customer relationships. 
• Prepare detailed reports and documentation of findings, ensuring accuracy and compliance with regulatory standards.
• Provide recommendations for improving internal controls and processes to mitigate financial crime risks.
• Assist in the education and delivery to business area staff to improve their  Financial Crime knowledge and detection ability 

The Skills you’ll bring

•  Excellent organisational skills and ability to  manage multiple tasks and meet strict SLA's.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills with attention to detail.
• Ability to develop and maintain internal and external business relationships to exchange routine and non-routine information clearly and concisely.
• Ability to develop technical knowledge on an ongoing basis and effectively impart learning with colleagues.
• Ability to embrace change and influence and encourage others.
• Responsibility for identifying, investigating, and mitigating financial crime risks, including money laundering, fraud, and other illicit activities.
• A strong understanding of regulatory requirements and the ability to work collaboratively with various departments to ensure compliance and protect the organisation from FC.
• Ability to use own judgement and all available tools to verify information, make informed decisions and escalate where necessary.

Experience to monitor & review Alerts generated by a number of monitoring systems and escalate cases, where necessary. (Such as Dow Jones, Cifas, Synectics, ACI and Threatmetrix)

 Essential Qualifications

Possess relevant industry qualifications such as International Compliance Association (ICA) Diploma, Association of Anti-Money Laundering Specialists (ACAMS) CAMS certification.

The role may involve travel to industry meetings, so a clean driver’s licence is desired.

Working Hours

Monday to Friday (37.5 hours per week) - shift pattern - 8am – 6pm and Saturday - 9am - 1pm, office presence 2 days per week.

What can we offer you?

• Generous Holiday Allowance: Starting from 25 days and climbing to 30, you also get to enjoy a day off for your birthday, Christmas Eve, and New Year’s Eve. You can also buy or sell up to a week’s leave
•  Share Save Scheme: Annually, you have the opportunity to buy shares in Paragon at a discounted rate
•  Profit Related Pay: We share some of our annual profit with our eligible employees
•  Pension Plan: We contribute up to 10% of your annual salary towards your pension
•  Family Friendly policies: We offer enhanced parental pay and paid time off for fertility treatment
•  Employee Discounts: Enjoy exclusive discounts on entertainment, travel, shopping, motoring and more
•  Volunteering Day: Contribute to causes you care about with one volunteering day per year
•  Life Assurance and Personal Accident Cover

Be flexible

We promote flexibility around how and where we work so that you can achieve a healthier work-life balance. We operate hybrid working, splitting our week between the office and home.

Be yourself

As an equal opportunities employer, we welcome diversity and care about inclusion. That’s why we want you to be your whole self at work. We believe an inclusive workplace is good for each of us, great for our customers and better for our business. Our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Network meets regularly to share challenges, experience, and ideas to build a more equal, diverse, and inclusive business.

Be heard

We listen to your point of view, with our People Forum and regular employee surveys making sure you can use your voice and influence our future.

Be well

We will give you access to a range of tools and resources to support your wellbeing. This will include a digital GP service via our free Employee Assistance Programme, access to our Wellbeing team to connect you with the help you need to get more out of life and our Vitality at Work programme to provide you with discounted gym membership, fitness equipment and another multitude of wellbeing services.

Be better

We want you to reach your potential and, as a Platinum Investors in People employer, we’ll encourage you to learn and develop by building a personalised development plan together with your manager.