Financial Crime Manager in Cheadle

Company Description

We’re Together. For over 50 years, we’ve helped thousands of people, businesses and professionals unlock their property ambitions with our common-sense approach to mortgages and secured loans. We take the time to understand our customers and our door is always open, so we can often help when other lenders can’t or won’t. Based in Cheadle, Cheshire, our 900 colleagues help our customers throughout the UK, backed by the power of a £7 billion loan book.

Job Description

As a Financial Crime Manager, you will be responsible for safeguarding the Group against money laundering, fraud, terrorist financing, and other financial crime threats through the leadership and oversight of the Group’s SAR investigation function. The role ensures high‑quality investigations, robust oversight, consistent reporting standards, and proactive liaison with law enforcement and internal stakeholders.

This position leads a team of specialist investigators, ensures optimisation of investigative workflows, and ensures all regulatory and internal standards are met or exceeded. Elements regarding SAR handling, NCA liaison, and investigative quality are drawn from the SAR & High-Risk Customer Specialist role.

As a Financial Crime Manager, you will:

• Lead and oversee the end‑to‑end investigation of Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs), ensuring quality, accuracy, depth, and timely completion.
• Review and approve internal SARs and act as the final decision‑maker on whether to externalise to the National Crime Agency (NCA).
• Review and approve fraud investigations, including (where applicable) whether matters meet the threshold to report to external fraud agencies.
• Ensure clear, well‑evidenced rationales are documented for all investigative outcomes—including cases where no suspicion is identified.
• Oversee Defence Against Money Laundering (DAML) requests and ensure compliance with legislative requirements and internal standards.
• Act as primary contact for NCA and other law enforcement bodies for all SAR‑related enquiries, account management, and intelligence-sharing.
• Lead and manage a team of Financial Crime Analysts/Investigators, ensuring optimal workload allocation, coaching, development, and performance management.
• Conduct regular 1:1s, case reviews, quality assurance checks, and skills assessments to develop investigative capability across the team.
• Produce and analyse operational MI, identifying trends, emerging risks, and performance bottlenecks; escalate concerns to the Deputy MLRO.
• Oversee the annual review of high‑risk customers across the Group, ensuring risk assessments are robust and appropriately documented.

Qualifications

Essential

• Extensive experience (5+ years) in financial crime investigations, including SAR assessment and reporting.
• Strong understanding of AML and wider Financial Crime regulations, including POCA, the Criminal Finances Act, SOCPA, the Terrorism Act, and the Fraud Act.
• Proven ability to lead investigative teams, manage workloads, and deliver consistent high‑quality output.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, particularly in drafting case notes, rationales, and regulatory reports.
• Strong risk‑based decision‑making capability and ability to navigate complex cases.
• Effective stakeholder management and ability to influence at senior levels.

If you feel you have some of the skills mentioned above, but not all, please do still apply and we would be happy to have a further discussion with you in regards to your suitability for the role.

Additional Information

Together embraces diversity and inclusion, and are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. Not only do we welcome difference – we celebrate it, support it and really value our colleagues for who they are. We are committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives and skills.

If you feel you'd benefit from any support or reasonable adjustments during any stage of the recruitment process, please don’t hesitate to let us know when completing your application. This information will be picked up by our team, so we can try and put steps in place to help you be at your best through this process.

Please note that all successful applicants will undergo relevant employment reference, financial and criminal record checks.