High Risk Assessment Specialist

This role is a unique opportunity to have an impact on Wise’s mission, grow as a specialist in the compliance field, help millions of people around the world save money, and drive growth on the Wise Platform. You will also develop an in-depth understanding of Wise’s business model and foster relationships with teams across the company as you work to help them understand compliance risk exposure and mitigation strategies.

The primary purpose of this position is to evaluate and assess high risk customers, mitigate risks associated with them,  while ensuring compliance with the established AML/CFT regulations, policies and Wise’s risk appetite. 

The High Risk Assessment Specialist has a working understanding of inherent risks associated with complex business structures and activities, customer types, country risks and their respective mitigation measures.  The investigation accommodates any legal, regulatory and operating requirements unique to specific business sectors or jurisdictions. 

What You’ll Actually Do! 

• Act as an end point for all escalations from other compliance operations teams, assessing customers’ risks and applying risk based approach methodologies;

• Mentor and consult other compliance operations teams and act as a subject matter expert in complex cases;

• Perform risk assessment on complex and high risk customers, document and provide thorough analysis on potential risks and apply appropriate mitigation measures by analyzing their business activities, compliance programs and controls;

• Review and on-board high risk and high value customers, performing risk assessments and thorough research based on customers’ profile

• Review and analyze documentation, such as AML, Sanctions, EDD, KYC, and Acceptable Use policies, comparing them against Wise’s policies and internal risk-based approach;

• Assess the customer’s potential reputational and financial crime risk to Wise from Sanctions, PEP, and adverse media perspective;

• Coming up with new and better risk mitigation methods and improving our compliance framework and controls while working closely with Product and Regulatory Compliance; 

• Escalate and report compliance concerns to Financial Crime Oversight and other compliance teams where necessary;

• Communicate with internal and external partners/stakeholders to facilitate scalable, compliant business onboarding growth;

• Work closely with Business Development, Account Implementation, and Wise Platform teams to on-board high risk companies, update on review statuses, communicate compliance concerns, and answer queries and concerns from relevant stakeholders;

• Work with product teams, operational leads, and compliance teams to manage operational impact of changes, increase operational efficiencies, and improve the customer experience;

• Be accountable for the quality assurance of the High Risk Assessment team, taking decisions within our policy framework, and working with compliance to evolve processes;

• Distill concerns or issues identified from relevant operational incidents and report these findings to senior management with recommended actions to address deficiencies;

• Support team leads on implementation and delivery of ad-hoc project work, participate in enhancing the compliance management knowledge of colleagues;

• Represent the team at various risk committees and audits at regional level when required.

• You can work autonomously within a limited variety of well-defined procedures and practices (not necessarily standardized);

• You have the ability to take difficult decisions, work with uncertainty, deal with unknowns, and coordinate various sources of information within and outside the organization;

• You are capable of identifying gaps in policies and processes and liaise as necessary with the team, other business units and stakeholders to resolve relevant issues;

• You have excellent interpersonal and communication skills, strong organizational skills, attention to detail, analytical abilities, and ability to adhere to strict deadlines in a fast paced and high pressure environment;

• You are punctual, resourceful, proactive, enthusiastic and willing to get things done;

• You can work in a diverse work environment which requires collaboration, partnership and transparency; 

• You have minimum of 2 years of relevant industry experience, ideally in financial services, compliance roles or at a financial services regulator; 

• You have a good understanding of regional and global regulatory requirements and essentials of risk based approach;

• You have strong analytical and problem solving capabilities;

• You have strong stakeholder management and interpersonal skills;

• You have analytical skills, with the ability to provide practical and realistic solutions for minimizing risk;

• You are comfortable working in a rapidly changing and complex work environment;

• You have bachelor’s degree or higher;

• You’re placed in Tallinn, Estonia and are eligible to work here (for example, you’re an EU citizen or have a residence permit in Estonia).

If you're interested in the position, please apply by submitting your CV in English and answer to the following questions (in the 'Message to Hiring Manager' field): 

• Please give us an example of a time when you reviewed/investigated a particularly high risk customer and provide us your analysis on how you reached your conclusion.

What do we offer: 

• Starting salary: 2675 EUR gross/monthly
• Numerous great benefits in our Tallinn office 

Hiring process:

• Application review (including your answer to the question above)

• Take Home Test

• 1st interview

• Final interview 

We are accepting applications for this position until May 9th, 2024.

For everyone, everywhere. We're people building money without borders  — without judgement or prejudice, too. We believe teams are strongest when they are diverse, equitable and inclusive.

We're proud to have a truly international team, and we celebrate our differences.

If you want to find out more about what it's like to work at Wise visit Instagram.