Financial Crime Risk Manager - 12 month FTC

About the role

<div class="content-intro"><p><strong>About us</strong></p> <p>GoCardless is a <strong>global bank payment</strong> company. Over <strong>100,000 businesses</strong>, from start-ups to household names, use GoCardless to collect and send payments through direct debit, real-time payments and open banking. </p> <p>GoCardless processes <strong>US$130bn+</strong> of payments annually, across <strong>30+ countries</strong>; helping customers collect and send both <strong>recurring</strong> and <strong>one-off payments</strong>, without the chasing, stress or expensive fees. We use AI-powered solutions to improve payment success and reduce fraud. And, with open banking connectivity to over <strong>2,500 banks</strong>, we help our customers make faster, more informed decisions.</p> <p>We are headquartered in the<strong> UK</strong> with offices in <strong>London</strong> and <strong>Leeds</strong>, and additional locations in <strong>Australia, France, Ireland, Latvia, Portugal</strong> and the <strong>United States.</strong></p> <p>At GoCardless, we're all about <strong>supporting you</strong>! We’re committed to making our hiring process <strong>inclusive</strong> and <strong>accessible</strong>. If you need extra support or adjustments, reach out to your <strong>Talent Partner</strong> — we’re here to help! </p> <p>And remember: we don’t expect you to meet every single requirement. If you’re excited by this role, <strong>we encourage you to apply!</strong></p></div><h3><strong>The Role</strong></h3> <p>As the Second Line of Defence (2LoD) subject matter expert, the Financial Crime Risk Manager will report directly to the Group MLRO and will play both a regional and global role. In this role, you will be primarily tasked with building and maintaining effective AML/CTF, ABC, and sanctions systems and controls to ensure compliance with laws and regulations in various GoCardless locations.</p> <p>This is a 12 month fixed term contract.</p> <h3><strong>What excites you</strong></h3> <ul> <li>Conducting end-to-end investigations into suspicious activity, gathering and analysing transactional and customer evidence to assess internal disclosures, and preparing and submitting Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) to the National Crime Agency (NCA) and other FIUs where reportable grounds for suspicion are identified</li> <li>Day-to-day oversight of the compliance team's JIRA request queue — Unusual Activity Reports (UARs), policy advisory, partner bank queries, FCDDQs, and ad hoc queries — triaging, prioritising, and allocating incoming work across the team, driving each item through to resolution, while executing tasks directly where technical fit and capacity allow;</li> <li>Executing the firm’s annual financial crime Enterprise-wide Risk Assessments (EWRA), including risk identification, data analysis, inherent risk assessment and control evaluation. Keeping EWRA methodology up-to-date; </li> <li>Closely follow legal, compliance, and regulatory developments in relation to AML/CTF, ABC, and sanctions in the Fintech industry, to ensure our processes keep pace;</li> <li>Drafting annual external reports and regulatory returns to the authorities, and acting as a point of contact for the FCA, NCA, and other law enforcement agencies, including in ongoing criminal investigations that commenced from a submitted SAR;</li> <li>New products, markets business partnerships/initiatives risk assessments and programme updates;</li> <li>Drafting financial crime manag