Financial Crime Lead - 1LODnew

Job Description

The Financial Crime Lead leads a business-aligned team of Financial Crime Specialists, owning the day-to-day delivery of customer-lifecycle financial crime activity - spanning transaction monitoring, screening, alert management, CDD and EDD - to a consistently high standard of quality, evidence and service. This is a working leadership role: the Financial Crime Lead is expected to lead and develop their team while remaining close enough to the work to quality-check output, unblock complex cases, and personally model the standard expected.

The role is based in Glasgow, taking on leadership of an existing, established team. The Financial Crime Lead will maintain and strengthen a resilient, well-rounded team capable of handling the full range of financial crime work, including complex cases, and will help prepare the team for a move to a new operating model under FCOP (the Financial Crime Operating Platform). Supporting the team through this transition, and helping colleagues build the skills the future model will demand, is a core and ongoing part of the role.

Key Responsibilities

Team Leadership & Operational Delivery

• Lead, manage and develop a team of Financial Crime Specialists, setting clear expectations for quality, productivity and evidence standards.
• Own operational performance for the team — workflow, queue health, SLAs, backlog and aged-case management.
• Allocate and prioritise case and alert work by financial crime risk and customer impact, balancing quality against service expectations.
• Act as the first point of escalation for complex or ambiguous cases within the team, providing hands-on guidance and, where needed, personally reviewing or completing the work.

Quality, Risk & Case Management

• Maintain consistent quality, evidence and decision-rationale standards across CDD, EDD, transaction monitoring, screening and alert disposition work, as relevant to the team's focus.
• Complete or quality-check complex customer risk assessments, EDD reviews, trigger-event and periodic-review work as required.
• Determine when cases or alerts require onward escalation to Investigations & Exits, the Nominated Officer, or second-line, and ensure escalations are well-evidenced and timely.
• Support root-cause analysis of quality defects and control breaks, feeding findings back into training, procedures and process design.

Process, Procedure & Continuous Improvement

• Maintain and improve team-level procedures, working practices and case-handling standards, ensuring they reflect current policy and the FC Handbook.
• Identify opportunities to streamline processes and reduce manual effort, including through better use of data, automation and system functionality.
• Support operational readiness for change — including the transition to FCOP, new products, acquisitions, and remediation activity — within the team.

Stakeholder & Business Engagement

• Act as the business-facing point of contact for operational financial crime queries and escalations from the relevant product or business area.
• Maintain effective working relationships with product teams, Operations, Controls & Advisory, Investigations & Exits, and second-line colleagues.
• Balance the operational demands of business teams with the need to maintain robust, defensible financial crime controls.

Data, MI & Reporting

• Produce and maintain accurate team-level MI covering volumes, ageing, quality and productivity.
• Use data and trend analysis to identify emerging risks, capacity issues or quality themes within the team's caseload.
• Contribute team-level input into wider Financial Crime Risk Services reporting and governance packs as required.

People Development & Team Capability

• Support and guide the team through the transition to the FCOP operating model, building understanding and confidence in new ways of working.
• Cross-skill and upskill the team so it can flex across CDD/EDD, screening and alert management work, reducing single points of failure and building resilience — including capability to handle complex cases.
• Coach and mentor team members, identifying development needs and creating opportunities for colleagues to grow and progress.
• Contribute to recruitment, onboarding and induction for new team members.

Person Specification

Essential Experience

• Experience within a financial crime, AML or fraud function (bank, specialist lender, or similar regulated financial services firm), covering one or more of: transaction monitoring, screening, alert management, CDD or EDD.
• Experience managing or supervising a team, including workload allocation, quality oversight and performance management.
• Experience working to, and helping others follow, financial crime policies and procedures.
• Experience acting as an escalation point for complex or sensitive cases.

Analytical & Technical Skills

• A logical, analytical mindset, comfortable using data and MI to manage a team's performance and identify emerging issues.
• Sound working knowledge of financial crime typologies and regulatory obligations relevant to CDD, EDD, transaction monitoring and screening.
• Comfortable working with case management and screening systems, with an interest in how automation and system improvements can streamline team processes.
• Clear written and verbal communication, able to explain financial crime decisions and requirements to business stakeholders in plain terms.

Behavioural & Leadership Attributes

• Comfortable leading from the front — equally credible directing a team and picking up complex casework personally.
• A genuine coaching and development mindset, invested in growing the capability of the team.
• Resilient and pragmatic, able to manage competing demands from business stakeholders while holding the line on control standards.
• Positive and adaptable in the face of change, with enthusiasm for helping the team through the move to a more data- and automation-driven model.

Qualifications

Desirable

• Relevant professional qualification (e.g. ICA Certificate/Diploma, or equivalent).
• Experience leading or stabilising an existing team through a period of change.
• Exposure to process improvement, automation or systems change within a financial crime or operations context.

Additional Information

Your Wellbeing - We take your health and well-being very seriously by providing a range of benefits to give you and your family peace of mind. These include:

• Market leading family friendly policies such as access to our Maternity, Adoption and Paternity policies from Day 1 of your employment
• Free access to Headspace, a mindfulness & meditation digital health app
• Free access to Peppy digital health app that offers personalised support through fertility treatment becoming a parent or menopause
• EAP (Employee Assistance Programme) - Offering you support on a wide range of subjects including financial concerns, mental wellbeing and more general queries around family, work, housing, and health
• Cycle to work scheme
• Discounts on gym membership
• Contributory pension scheme & death in service

Your Lifestyle - It’s important you strike the right balance between your work and personal life. We provide benefits to support you when at work and when you’re enjoying your leisure time.

• Minimum of 27 days holiday per year
• Option to buy or sell holiday days through our flexi-holiday scheme
• Discounts on gym membership nationwide
• Access to discounts on a range of high street and online brands
• Community support and charitable giving

Your Contribution - We’re focused on rewarding those that go the extra mile in helping us achieve our goals.

• Participation in our annual discretionary bonus scheme designed to reward your contribution to our success
• Proudly Shawbrook recognition scheme focused on recognising our role models and thanking our colleagues for a job well done