Financial Crime Specialist - KYC in Manchester

We are looking for a driven and detail‑oriented KYC Financial Crime Specialist to join our fast‑paced Financial Crime Operations team. This hands‑on role protects the bank from financial crime by conducting Enhanced Due Diligence (EDD), assessing transaction activity, and ensuring onboarding and ongoing customer checks are completed.

Key responsibilities include:

• Conduct thorough, risk‑proportionate investigations on medium and high‑risk customers as part of EDD.
• Assess customers’ Source of Wealth (SoW) and Source of Funds (SoF), ensuring consistency with their risk profile and transactional behaviour.
• Complete EDD reviews for Specialised Interested Persons (SIPs), Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs), High Net Worth Individuals (HNWIs), and customers subject to court orders or law‑enforcement enquiries.
• Manage a caseload of ongoing and onboarding customer risk review cases efficiently, maintaining high throughput without sacrificing investigative quality.
• Identify and escalate customers whose risk profile has materially changed, applying sound regulatory and commercial judgement.
• Adapt quickly to changing volumes and prioritisation needs, demonstrating resilience and flexibility in a fast‑moving operational environment.
• Conduct onboarding and ongoing name‑screening checks to accurately identify sanctioned individuals, PEPs, relatives and close associates (RCAs).
• Assess screening alerts with confidence and precision, escalating appropriately and completing EDD off the back of positive findings in line with policy and regulatory requirements.
• Maintain a strong understanding of sanctions regimes, including OFSI, OFAC and UN designations, and their implications for customer relationships.
• Conduct ad‑hoc screening on international inbound credits to ensure funds have not originated from a sanctioned entity or individual.
• Make timely, well‑reasoned screening decisions, escalating potential matches in accordance with agreed procedures and within required time‑frames.
• Handle inbound and outbound phone‑based and chat‑based interactions with customers, addressing enquiries and providing support for suspended accounts.
• Leverage AI‑enabled monitoring and investigation tools as a core part of day‑to‑day activity, identifying patterns, generating case summaries and supporting decision‑making.
• Critically assess AI‑generated outputs – including alerts, recommendations and investigative summaries – applying professional judgement to ensure accuracy, regulatory alignment and sound case decisions.
• Use insights from AI tools to support risk identification, drive investigation efficiency and produce high‑quality written summaries and recommendations.
• Contribute observations and feedback on AI tool performance to support the continuous improvement of monitoring systems and financial crime controls.
• Champion a forward‑thinking, technology‑positive approach within the team, helping to embed AI‑assisted ways of working that enhance rather than replace human judgement.

This is a hybrid role – the team works in the office 3 days a week. Your working week will consist of 7.5‑hour shifts between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., Monday to Friday. You will be required to work one day of the weekend every other week, remotely, and receive a day off during the week when you work a weekend day. Several bank holidays a year will also be worked, with any holidays worked given back as time in lieu.

Qualifications:

• Experience in financial crime risk management, with a focus on EDD, AML and/or KYC processes, ideally within a fintech, challenger bank or regulated financial institution.
• Strong command of UK financial crime regulations, including the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA), Money Laundering Regulations (MLR 2017) and FCA guidelines on financial crime.
• In‑depth knowledge of financial crime risk typologies, due diligence processes, transaction monitoring methodologies and name‑screening best practice.
• Awareness of emerging financial crime trends relevant to the fintech sector, including crypto‑asset risks, APP fraud and sanctions evasion.
• Demonstrated experience working in a target‑driven or high‑throughput compliance operations environment.
• Strong analytical ability and meticulous attention to detail, with the capacity to assess complex financial transactions and identify potential financial crime typologies.
• Solid understanding of AML/KYC processes including transaction monitoring, adverse media screening, EDD, and PEP/sanctions screening.
• Ability to produce clear, well‑structured written documentation, including investigation summaries, escalation reports and risk assessments.
• Comfortable working with AI‑powered compliance tools, and able to critically evaluate AI‑generated outputs to support compliant case decisions.
• Thrives in a fast‑paced, high‑volume environment and demonstrates strong personal organisation and time management to meet case SLAs.
• Proactive and solutions‑focused, with the initiative to flag issues early and adapt to changing priorities.
• Collaborative team player who builds effective relationships with internal stakeholders across compliance, operations and technology teams, as well as external parties where required.
• Demonstrates professionalism and strict confidentiality at all times.

We value flexible ways of working. You may work from abroad for up to 120 days a year, provided you have the right to work in the country of choice and are able to support our hybrid model of 3 days a week in the Manchester office.

Diversity Statement: Zopa is proud to offer a workplace free from discrimination. Diversity of experience, perspectives and backgrounds leads to better products for our customers and a unique company culture for our people. We are made up of nearly 50 nationalities, have a DE&I forum, and are proud of our culture where everyone can bring their full self to work. Our approach to DE&I is reflected in our hiring process, so please let us know if you require any reasonable adjustments.