Transaction Monitoring Lead

We are looking for someone to take ownership of Transaction Monitoring at BCB and shape its next stage. You will run the function day to day, leading a globally dispersed team of over 10 analysts and senior analysts, set the standard for what good looks like, and deliver it: refine rules so they focus on real risk, extend coverage as our products grow, automate manual, low-judgement work, and build a team that investigates well and escalates with confidence.

You report to the Head of Financial Crime Operations and you will have real authority over how transaction monitoring works across fiat and crypto, as the first line of defence for the Group.

This is a role for someone who sees a process that could work better and improves it without waiting to be asked.

BCB moves fiat and digital assets 24/7 for some of the largest crypto businesses in the world, through our Client Console, API and BLINC instant settlement network. Monitoring has to keep pace with that volume and speed. We have solid foundations, and we want a leader who will build on them to create a function that is data-led, well documented, measurable and increasingly automated, and that keeps alert and case volumes under control as the business grows.

• The transaction monitoring framework for fiat and crypto across the Group, including rules, scenarios, thresholds, typologies and the documented rationale behind each.
• Confirm every product, entity and payment flow feeds the monitoring system completely and accurately, including new products before launch.
• Alert handling end to end: triage, investigation, escalation, case management and closure, with clear SLAs and quality standards, covering transaction monitoring alerts, sanctions and PEP screening hits on customers and counter parties.
• Backlog and capacity: keep alert and case queues within tolerance, plan rotas and capacity against volume growth, and step in quickly when backlogs build.
• Oversight of any outsourced or third-party review capacity, including SLA performance, quality and escalation standards.
• Decisions to elevate internal suspicious activity reports (ISARs) to the MLRO, and the quality of those reports: well reasoned, evidenced and on time, and support to the MLRO in preparing external SARs/STRs, including to the NCA, TRACFIN and FINTRAC.
• Rule calibration tuning and effectiveness testing, using data to cut false positives and find the activity current rules miss. Document rationale behind each, with changes approved through BCB’s governance process in partnership with Compliance (2
  
  LOD) and the MLRO.
• Automation of manual, low-judgement, work, whether through vendor tooling, workflow automation, scripting or AI-assisted review.
• Blockchain analytics as part of monitoring, not a separate step.
• A quality assurance and quality control framework for the team, with sampling, feedback loops and results reported to governance.
• Management information for senior leadership and governance forums: volumes, backlog, ageing, conversion rates, quality results, emerging risk.
• Procedures (SOPs) for the function, kept current and usable by the people doing the work.
• Leadership of the TM team of over 10 people, working through senior analysts: team structure, hiring, coaching, and performance, and building senior analysts who can make day-to-day decisions without you. Building a robust operating model that increasingly relies upon efficiency, automated workflows and AI over increased headcount.
• Working relationships with Compliance, Onboarding, Fraud, Product, Engineering and Data, and with regulators and auditors when they review the function. Represent transaction monitoring at governance forums and deputise for the Head of Financial Crime Operations on monitoring matters.