Senior Manager GES Payments Team
- Toronto, ON
- Permanent
- Full-time
Reporting to the Platform AML Officer and Director of Economic Sanctions, the Global Economic Sanctions (GES) Payments team is a unique function in Global AML Compliance. It is comprised of a group of employees who are responsible for the review, investigation and decisioning of real time wire payments and cross border Automated Clearing House transactions that are initiated /received by RBC clients globally. Payments that contain references to a sanctioned country, or potentially match against a regulatory control list or other internal list used in the screening process, are escalated to the GES team by the Payments Processing Operations Centre (PPOC) for investigation to review the sanctions concerns identified in the payment transaction, assess the risk, and determine if the payment should be released, cancelled or blocked. More specifically, payments that are sent/received to/from RBC are screened against government sanctions lists (U.S. EU, UK and Canada) that identify individuals/entities/ countries in respect of which / whom RBC is prohibited from conducting all or certain types of transactions. It is the responsibility of the GES Payments Team to review the flagged payments, investigate and decision the payment.
The investigations of these transactions can be very complex and requires a high level of substantive sanctions knowledge and expertise to assess the sanctions risk associated with the payment transaction. The Senior Manager, GES Payments must have an exceptional understanding of the sanctions regulations (US, UK, EU and Canada) and where required, engage global business units and local compliance teams to provide additional information in support of the payment. As the subject matter is complex and can be extremely sensitive (i.e. when questioning clients with respect to certain of the country sanctions), the Senior Manager, GES Payments must clearly communicate to stakeholders the information required by the client to address the risk, and be in a position of sufficient impact and influence to emphasize the urgency of receiving the information given the transactions are live payments. This group of employees is under stress that is distinct from other areas within AML Compliance, and more broadly, Global Compliance, given funds are held, and not sent or paid, pending the outcome of the investigation. If the team errs in its decision making, RBC will be subject to a high degree of regulatory/legal, reputational, and financial risk. USD payments, regardless of dollar value, may be blocked by a US correspondent whose role is to clear the transaction subsequent to origination by RBC. It is therefore critical for an investigation to be thorough and accurate, as the results could have a severe negative impact to RBC.What will you do?
- Role is critical to the mitigation of RBC regulatory / reputational / financial risk at RBC emanating from the processing of payments that may be subject to sanctions risk
- Senior Manager is required to have expert Canadian, US, UK, and E.U. sanctions knowledge as well as expert payments knowledge for both SWIFT wires and Automated Clearing House transactions
- Responsible for the management of the Global Economic Sanctions (GES) Payments Team who review, document and decision payments from Global Business Units where payment processing has been centralized in Toronto
- Responsible for managing the relationship with the Payment Processing Operation Centre (PPOC) to ensure timely resolution of complex sanctions issues and to identify payment processing efficiencies
- Act as escalation point for payments team for transactions that are complex from a sanctions regulations perspective and provide recommended course of action to Senior management for transactions that pose significant risk to RBC
- Identify clients who pose unacceptable sanctions risk to RBC to ensure that clients are escalated where required
- Act as point of contact for escalations from Global Business Units and Local Compliance teams in respect of payment escalations
- Act as subject matter expert for Projects involving the GES Payments team's processes or technology
- Responsible for drafting and updating policy and procedural documentation of the GES Payments team
Must have
- 7-10 years proven Financial Industry Compliance or legal Experience (the latter in house or external), ideally including sanctions experience
- Excels in a high paced, high pressured environment
- Strong written and oral communication skills
- Undergraduate Degree
- LL.B
- Master's Degree in International Relations/Development
- Master's of Business Administration
- ACAMS certification
- A comprehensive Total Rewards Program including bonuses and flexible benefits, competitive compensation, commissions, and stock where applicable
- Leaders who support your development through coaching and managing opportunities
- Ability to make a difference and lasting impact
- Work in a dynamic, collaborative, progressive, and high performing team
- A world-class training program in financial services
- Opportunities to do challenging work