Financial Crime QA Manager

Our client is seeking a motivated and detail oriented Financial Crime QA Manager to take ownership of building and embedding a first line assurance capability that enhances the quality, consistency, and effectiveness of Financial Crime Operations. The successful candidate will deliver a risk based QA programme that provides independent oversight and drives continuous improvement across onboarding, transaction monitoring, and ongoing due diligence processes.

You will be instrumental in identifying control weaknesses, knowledge gaps, and procedural inconsistencies, using insights to improve policy implementation, operational training, and risk-based controls. This is an exciting opportunity for an experienced financial crime professional who thrives in a dynamic environment and is confident working with diverse stakeholders across operational, compliance, and product teams.

Location

Central London

3 Days in Office

Rate

£70,000 - £85,000 base salary + Package + Benefits

Hours

Standard Business Hours

Start

ASAP

Duration

Permanent

Responsibilities

Lead the design and execution of a first-line Quality Assurance (QA) framework across core financial crime processes including onboarding, transaction monitoring, sanctions screening, and ongoing due diligence.
Conduct independent reviews of case handling and decision-making to assess control effectiveness, consistency, and alignment with internal policies and regulatory expectations.
Deliver a tiered QA model — incorporating real-time reviews for high-risk clients and retrospective sampling for lower-risk activity — to drive timely feedback and reduce approval bottlenecks.
Identify knowledge gaps, procedural weaknesses, and control design failures, and feed structured insights into operational teams, training functions, and policy updates.
Partner with 1LOD teams (e.g. Client Onboarding, CDD, Screening, TM, Fraud Ops) and 2LOD Compliance to ensure QA findings support uplift of controls, training, and procedural guidance.
Develop and maintain a centralised QA MI suite, enabling visibility of key trends, recurring issues, and control performance across teams and client segments.
Act as a key contributor to audit and regulatory readiness by maintaining well-evidenced QA outputs and tracking remediation of findings.
Drive continuous improvement in operational quality and assurance maturity, supporting a high-performance culture and robust financial crime governance.
Support the assessment and enhancement of QA tooling, sampling methodologies, and feedback mechanisms to ensure the framework remains scalable and risk-aligned.

Essential Skills & Experience Required

Proven experience in financial crime quality assurance/control within a regulated banking or financial services environment.
Strong knowledge of UK AML/CTF, sanctions, and fraud regulations, and familiarity with regulatory expectations from the FCA, PRA, and JMLSG.
Experience overseeing financial crime controls for high-risk client segments such as NBFIs, MSBs, FX brokers, and crypto firms.
Deep understanding of clients’ financial crime control frameworks, including onboarding, transaction monitoring, sanctions screening, and MI reporting.
Strong working knowledge of the three lines of defence model, with demonstrated effectiveness operating within the First Line of Defence (1LOD).
Ability to develop and implement standardised frameworks for client oversight, including ongoing due diligence and MI collection.
Proficiency with financial crime technology platforms (e.g. ComplyAdvantage, LexisNexis, Dun & Bradstreet) and experience using data to drive risk-based decisions.
Demonstrated ability to lead through change, including tooling enhancements, control remediation, or framework improvements.
Excellent communication and documentation skills, with a focus on analytical thinking, clarity of risk articulation, and senior stakeholder engagement.

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