Manager - Compliance

The American Express Global Financial Crimes Compliance (GFCC) function provides second-line policy, framework, oversight and control solutions to meet the Company’s legal, regulatory and risk management mandates in connection with Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Counter Terrorism Financing (CTF), Sanctions and Anti-Bribery and Corruption.  The GFCC portfolio comprises all aspects of the Company’s first and second-line financial crime risk management (FCRM) activities, including all lines of businesses in the APAC region and both proprietary non-proprietary global markets.

The Regional Financial Crimes Compliance - APAC team is responsible for overseeing the market level financial crime programs and ensuring implementation of systems, controls and procedures that are compliant with Enterprise standards, Legal Entity policy, and specific local market requirements. The team is also responsible for maintaining a formal governance framework which continuously monitors the health of each market/legal entity program and ensures consistency and alignment with enterprise expectations. They also provide investigative support for the APAC legal entities, handling investigations that are escalated by the Global FC Surveillance Unit.

This role sits within the Regional FCC Investigations team within the Regional Financial Crimes Compliance – APAC team.

Reporting into the Head of FC Investigations, this role will support the oversight and governance of the GFCC operations across the APAC markets and have an important coordination, monitoring and reporting role. They will be assisting in managing relationships with key stakeholders in both the Regional Financial Crimes Compliance and Legal Entity Compliance Officer teams and help manage team training, quality controls and other enterprise and market-level requirements.

This role will work with team colleagues to support in the following areas –

• The oversight and governance support of financial crime related matters across the APAC region for all American Express products, services and business lines.

• Supporting the APAC Region’s contribution to the various Enterprise led projects as well as the socialisation strategy for key stakeholders in the APAC region.

• Ensuring all APAC markets are meeting the Enterprise Financial Crime Risk Management Standards by working closely with compliance.

• Lead operational forecasting, planning and resourcing requirements for APACs’ investigations teams.

• Ensure the effective escalation and timely resolution of investigations undertaken by the team through oversight, monitoring and reporting of the investigations performed.

• Ensuring the quality, accuracy, and timeliness of suspicious activity and transaction reporting and sanctions/PEP/Risk screening processes in line with local regulations and GFCC policy and standards; and providing guidance to local teams on documentation standards and regulatory expectations.

• Closely collaborate with other Market/Regional Investigations teams to ensure harmonization and best practice sharing.

• Monitoring and assessing emerging risks and regulatory changes in close coordination with the Regional FCC regulatory team within the region, identifying trends and developing strategies to include in investigative procedures and training.

• Enabling effective ongoing training and deep awareness of the evolving financial crime environment for all the team members.

• Supporting the management of supervisory and regulatory examinations and audits.

• Collecting, analysing and reporting on screening, investigations and investigations metrics for relevant legal entities; and provide reports and regular updates to senior management on the operation and effectiveness of systems and controls.

• Supporting the team’s governance function by contributing to the enhancement of our oversight and QA capability. Oversight will include any processes and controls established by the 1LoD and/or to be migrated to the 1LoD.

• Liaising with key operational stakeholders and offering insightful SME regarding financial crime matters.

• Providing input into the enhancement of appropriate reporting for all elements of the financial crime program

• Supporting and strengthening the efforts of American Express to assist in the global fight against all aspects of financial crime. 

• At least 4 years demonstrated experience in financial crime compliance experience, with investigations experience an advantage.

• In-depth knowledge and understanding of financial crime and related regulatory requirements throughout the APAC region.

• Experience in identifying financial crime risks, in particular for credit cards  and merchant services amongst others, and developing and implementing financial crime programs and controls to manage identified risks.

• Excellent communication skills and the ability to develop and maintain relationships.

• Strong judgement.

• Self-motivated, energetic team player with proven ability to work effectively across jurisdictions and with all levels of management.

• Ability to manage multiple tasks, take on additional responsibilities, and prioritize work in a deadline-intensive environment.

• Aptitude for analysis, investigation & problem solving.

• Experience of working in a complex matrix organization structure is an advantage.