Vice President, Sanctions Advisory (Escalations Team Lead)

Do you want your voice heard and your actions to count? Discover your opportunity with Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), the 7th largest financial group in the world. Across the globe, we’re 160,000 colleagues, striving to make a difference for every client, organization, and community we serve. We stand for our values, building long-term relationships, serving society, and fostering shared and sustainable growth for a better world.

The Financial Crimes Office for EMEA (FCOE) in London is part of the Global Financial Crimes Division (GFCD) headquartered in New York. It works to ensure that our organisation conducts its business in a way that protects our reputation, our business, and our clients within the regulatory and legal framework. It is responsible for the establishment and maintenance of effective systems and controls to protect clients’ assets and to mitigate the risk that MUFG might be used to further financial crime.

Within the Sanctions team of FCOE, the Sanctions Advisory team is responsible for providing sanctions advice on the relevant regulations, client relationships, transactions and deals; to ensure that the bank remains compliant with laws and regulations. This particular team is predominantly focused on payment and transaction escalations as well as payment projects.

MAIN PURPOSE OF THE ROLE

Driving the implementation of MUFG Bank’s financial crimes risk appetite, policies and standards by managing and providing an approachable sanctions advisory escalations hub, within the Sanctions Advisory team. The Sanctions Advisory, Escalations team are responsible for managing escalations from the EMEA region on all sanctions queries, which will primarily relate to payments and transactions; it is their responsibility to ensure that regulations and laws are well understood and applied against payment and transaction escalations, ensuring advice is clear, informative and consistent.

The role holder will be responsible for:

• Staying abreast of relevant Sanctions laws and regulations.
• When sanctions alerts, that are generated through the banks screening systems, are noted as having a ‘True’ sanctions risk; following an initial investigation they are escalated to Level 3.
• Level 3 reviews are then required, to determine the most appropriate course of action in line with regulations.
• Developing and overseeing the Sanctions, Level 3 screening escalations Team; ensuring adherence to regulations and SLA’s.
• Providing Sanctions Payment SME input and guidance into payment related initiatives, to ensure that the bank remains compliant with sanctions and payment regulations alongside the requirements of payment scheme memberships.
• Reviewing the loan or deal for Sanctions concerns and ensuring the appropriate measures are undertaken, so as to ensure compliance with laws and regulations.
• Ensuring MUFG systems are compliant with Sanctions regulations, and representing Sanctions and inputting into payment related projects within the Region and Group.
• Overseeing the investigation of each case, determining if it can be processed and escalating any sanctions issues to Management and Global Sanctions Advisory.
• Maintaining appropriate MI on the status of cases, keeping the team and regions up to date with regulatory updates and policy or process changes whilst continually looking for process improvements or efficiencies.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

In addition to the duties described above, you will contribute to the work of the GFCD department in any other ways reasonably expected, including memberships of projects and working groups and assisting with other priorities in the department or group as a whole.

Sanctions Team Lead: Key Responsibilities

• Contribute to the implementation of and compliance with Global Policies, Standards and Procedures which govern MUFG’s financial crime control framework across EMEA; ensuring appropriate Sanctions Risk Management and delivering efficiencies within existing processes.
• Manage L3 escalations driven by sanctions, monitoring case and query volumes and planning for future case volumes based on previous trends.
• Provide timely and consistent sanctions advice on L3 escalations to key stakeholders.
• Ongoing leadership and oversight of Sanctions escalations team; including providing specific Sanctions SME guidance.
• Participate and contribute to payment related projects ensuring Sanctions regulations are taken into account and remain adhered to.
• Provide regular updates on regulatory developments & their impacts on Sanctions payment systems.
• Ensure the team stay aligned with regulatory developments so as to ensure compliance with laws and regulations.
• Liaise with key stakeholders to perform Customer Due Diligence when a sanctions nexus is identified.
• Conduct risk assessments on proposed transactions.
• Evaluate and provide advice regarding sanctions clauses in contractual agreements.
• Provide training and development to the Sanctions Advisory Escalations team.
• Review and assess future transactions and or deals, so as to ensure appropriate sanctions compliance.
• Review sanction alerts identified during Know Your Customer (KYC) onboarding and periodical review.
• Present key Management Information as well as sanctions regulatory updates at monthly forums, including some external panels and groups.
• Review, assess and approve New Product Approvals in the EMEA region from a sanction’s perspective.
• Assist GFCD in the collection of customer information pertaining to sanctions data.
• Maintain, review and approve Sanctions Policy documents for the EMEA region.
• Driving the timely and effective resolution of all EMEA Sanctions issues.

SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE

Functional / Technical Competencies:

• Proven experience in and understanding of Sanctions.
• Proven experience in Payments.
• Strong knowledge of and experience in banking.
• A good understanding of Banking and Investment products.
• Good understanding of financial crime risk in banking.
• An excellent understanding of the concepts of risk management and control.

Specifics of role:

• Strong analytical skills.
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, both written & verbal.
• Strong financial sanctions knowledge in particular OFAC, EU and UK regulations.
• The ability to operate with urgency and prioritise work accordingly.
• Strong decision-making skills, the ability to demonstrate sound judgement.
• Strong relationship building and management skills.

PERSONAL REQUIREMENTS

• Results driven, with a strong sense of accountability.
• Excellent communication skills.
• A proactive, motivated approach.
• The ability to operate with urgency and to manage large workloads and tight deadlines.
• Excellent attention to detail and accuracy.
• Strong decision making skills, the ability to demonstrate sound judgement.
• A structured and logical approach to work.
• A creative and innovative approach to work.
• Excellent interpersonal skills.
• Works collaboratively with immediate colleagues, other teams in Financial Crime, across ECOD and the Bank and escalates appropriately.
• Effective operating in a team and matrix-oriented environment, and ability to work with colleagues at all levels of seniority.
• A calm approach, with the ability to perform well in a pressurised environment.

We are open to considering flexible working requests in line with organisational requirements. MUFG is committed to embracing diversity and building an inclusive culture where all employees are valued, respected and their opinions count. We support the principles of equality, diversity and inclusion in recruitment and employment, and oppose all forms of discrimination on the grounds of age, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability, pregnancy and maternity, race, gender reassignment, religion or belief and marriage or civil partnership.