Head of Financial Crime Oversight, Wealth Management
Schroders · London
We are seeking an experienced Financial Crime Compliance Senior Manager to join our second line Financial Crime Compliance team supporting Wealth Management. This role provides oversight, challenge and advisory support across AML, sanctions, fraud, high-risk client review, regulatory reporting, risk assessment, training and governance activities.
About Us
Schroders is a global investment manager which provides active asset management, wealth management and investment solutions. We aim to provide excellent investment performance to clients through active management. We serve a diverse client base that includes pension schemes, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds, endowments, foundations, high net worth individuals, family offices, as well as end clients through partnerships with distributors, financial advisers, and online platforms.
Established in 1804, we have around 5,500 people across 36 global locations. Schroders' success can be attributed to its diversified business model, spanning different asset classes, client types and geographies.
The base
We moved into our new HQ in the City of London in 2018. We’re close to our clients, in the heart of the UK’s financial centre and we have everything we need to work flexibly.
Team Overview
The Group Financial Crime Compliance function operates as part of the second line of defence, providing comprehensive oversight across Schroders. This function serves as the central control for safeguarding Schroders against exploitation by illicit actors by establishing groupwide financial crime policies and risk frameworks designed to meet regulatory obligations while protecting Schroders reputation.
Role Purpose
The Head of Anti-Financial Crime Oversight will lead on the delivery of second line of defence financial crime compliance oversight for Schroders Wealth Management business lines. The role will provide advice, challenge, assurance and governance support across key financial crime risk areas, including anti-money laundering, counter terrorist financing, sanctions, fraud, bribery and corruption, tax evasion facilitation prevention, and proliferation financing.
The role will help ensure that Wealth Management operates in line with the Schroders Financial Crime compliance framework and applicable regulatory expectations, while providing effective oversight of first line processes and timely escalation of material financial crime issues.
Authorised Function Responsibilities
None
Key responsibilities
1. Financial crime advice, escalation and issue management
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Provide ongoing financial crime advice and guidance to the business including management of financial crime queries and escalation channels.
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Triage financial crime issues by severity, regulatory exposure and control weakness, ensuring appropriate ownership, deadlines and escalation routes are defined.
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Support the review and escalation of significant financial crime matters, including fraud concerns, sanctions issues, suspicious activity indicators, high-risk payment concerns and other material control weaknesses.
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Document financial crime issue reports, including root cause, impacted key risk indicators, control weaknesses and remediation approach where appropriate.
2. High-risk client and relationship oversight
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Provide second line oversight and review of high-risk business relationships, including new client onboarding, trigger events, and annual reviews.
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Review and challenge financial crime risk inputs, approvals and escalations relating to high-risk clients, ensuring decisions are consistent with policy, risk appetite and regulatory expectations.
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Support the development and application of risk-based escalation criteria for high-risk client matters, ensuring that first line ownership is maintained and second line review is appropriately targeted.
3. Regulatory reporting and external obligations
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Support annual, ad hoc and periodic financial crime regulatory reporting, including applicable regulatory submissions.
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Assist with preparation, review and coordination of information required for regulatory reports, submissions, enquiries or financial crime-related attestations.
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Act as a second line contributor to financial crime responses for due diligence questionnaires and other external stakeholder requests where specialist FCC input is required.
4. Financial crime framework, policy and procedure oversight
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Support the maintenance of the Financial Crime compliance framework across key risk types, including AML, sanctions, bribery and corruption, fraud and tax evasion facilitation prevention.
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Maintain awareness of minimum standards, policy requirements and procedural expectations, ensuring Wealth Management activity remains aligned to the wider financial crime framework.
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Review first line procedures to assess alignment with financial crime policies, standards and regulatory expectations.
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Support the maintenance of financial crime policies, standards and related inventories, including ownership, version control and review cycle tracking where relevant to the role.
5. Monitoring, assurance and oversight
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Conduct or support second line assurance over first line financial crime key control processes, including thematic reviews, file reviews, control assessments and oversight activity.
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Support the definition of a risk-based financial crime oversight plan covering key risk types such as AML, sanctions, bribery and corruption, fraud and tax evasion facilitation prevention.
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Produce financial crime monitoring and oversight outputs, including themes, root causes, key risk indicators and remediation status for governance reporting.
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Review financial crime control breaches and support assessment of root cause, containment, client impact where relevant, and remediation actions.
6. Screening, transaction monitoring and control oversight
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Provide second line oversight and challenge over financial crime screening and alert management processes, including sanctions screening, client screening, investment screening and transaction monitoring.
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Review escalated screening, sanctions, fraud, high-risk payment and nominated bank account matters where second line input is required following first line assessment.
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Support review of screening tools, rules, risk assessment tables and related control arrangements to ensure they remain aligned with policy and risk appetite expectations.
7. Management information and governance reporting
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Produce or contribute to financial crime dashboards for Board and management reporting, including trends, threshold breaches and remediation ageing.
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Maintain or support the financial crime MI inventory and data lineage for relevant metrics, including transaction monitoring volumes, sanctions screening KPIs, ABC due diligence and fraud losses.
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Provide clear, risk-based commentary on financial crime themes, incidents, issues, root causes, remediation progress and emerging risks for governance forums.
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Produce or support the production of briefing materials for business leaders, committees, Boards or management forums on financial crime risks, control effectiveness, sanctions risk, ABC red flags and fraud trends.
8. Risk assessment
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Support the annual financial crime risk assessment process, including workshops, challenge sessions, evidence review and documented outputs.
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Apply financial crime risk assessment methodology standards, including scoring, evidence expectations, scope definition and control mapping requirements.
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Contribute to risk assessment updates for Wealth Management, ensuring key risks, controls, issues and remediation actions are accurately reflected.
9. Training and awareness
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Design, deliver or support mandatory, targeted and ad hoc financial crime training for Wealth Management audiences.
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Maintain and update induction training material and role-based training content covering key financial crime risk areas. Track training attendance and support escalation of non-completion where relevant, particularly for higher-risk roles.
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Issue or support targeted financial crime learning briefings following incidents, typology changes, regulatory developments or control lessons learned.
Required knowledge and experience
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Strong understanding of financial crime risks in a Wealth Management environment, including AML, CTF, sanctions, fraud, bribery and corruption, tax evasion facilitation prevention, and proliferation financing.
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Experience operating in a second line compliance, financial crime advisory, oversight, assurance or monitoring role.
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Ability to provide effective challenge to first line teams while maintaining constructive and pragmatic working relationships with key stakeholders.
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Experience preparing Board, committee or senior management MI, including risk-based commentary, trends, threshold breaches, remediation status and issue ageing.
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Familiarity with client due diligence, enhanced due diligence, politically exposed persons, sanctions screening, adverse media or similar high-risk client review processes (including transaction monitoring).
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Experience supporting regulatory reporting, due diligence questionnaires, policy/standards/guidance review, risk assessment or training delivery.
In discharging their responsibilities, the Head of Anti-Financial Crime Oversight Wealth Management shall:
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As appropriate, ensure that the Group Head of Financial Crime is made aware of any issues which the Head of Anti-Financial Crime Oversight Wealth Management deems as material and which should be communicated to the Chief Risk Officer and appropriate governance fora.
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Provide to the Group Head of Financial Crime Compliance, an annual assessment of their own performance against objectives agreed with them.
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Provide annual reports to applicable UK Boards, supporting input into the Board Audit and Risk Committee, the Group Risk Committee (GRC) and the Financial Crime Committee (FCC).
We Recognise Potential, Whoever You Are
Our purpose is to deliver excellent investment performance to clients through active management. We believe diverse perspectives and an inclusive culture help us make better decisions and achieve better outcomes for our clients. That's why inclusion is a strategic priority for us, and we are an equal opportunities employer. You are welcome here, regardless of your age, disability, gender identity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, socio-economic background, or any other protected characteristic.
We will consider flexible working arrangements for all roles and provide reasonable accommodations to support applicants and employees, including those with neurodiversity, disability, or physical and mental health needs. For more information, please visit our FAQs.