WP NA Risk Team Lead

Company Description

Wise is a global technology company, building the best way to move and manage the world’s money.
Min fees. Max ease. Full speed.

Whether people and businesses are sending money to another country, spending abroad, or making and receiving international payments, Wise is on a mission to make their lives easier and save them money.

As part of our team, you will be helping us create an entirely new network for the world's money.
For everyone, everywhere.

More about our mission and what we offer.

Job Description

Role & Job purpose

As a Risk Assessment Senior 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/CFT regulations, and internal policies according to Wise’s risk appetite. The Risk Assessment Senior 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 a point of contact for all escalations from within Risk Assessment team, other Compliance Operations teams, Business departments and second line of defense;

• Mentor, collaborate and act as a subject matter expert for partner risk assessment and provide support to the team members with queries and escalations;

• Perform risk assessment 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;

• Conduct thorough and detailed due diligence on our enterprise business partners to assess their compliance with regulatory requirements, internal policies, and industry standards.

• Review and analyze documentation, such as AML, Sanctions, EDD, KYC, and Acceptable Use policies, 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 Regulatory Compliance; 

• Support training of new joiners and upskilling existing members of the assessment team and wider compliance & business teams;

• Run process and approach improvement initiatives independently and see them through completion to achieve efficiencies;

• Escalate, report and resolve 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/control 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;

• Represent the team at various risk committees and audits at regional level when required.

Requirements

• Excellent verbal and written English skills (additional language skills are a plus) with the ability to clearly articulate your thoughts;

• A minimum of 4+ 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