Assistant Vice President, Sanctions Programs – Payment Project (12 month FTC)

Do you want your voice heard and your actions to count?

Discover your opportunity with Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), the 7th largest financial group in the world. Across the globe, we’re 120,000 colleagues, striving to make a difference for every client, organization, and community we serve. We stand for our values, building long-term relationships, serving society, and fostering shared and sustainable growth for a better world.

With a vision to be the world’s most trusted financial group, it’s part of our culture to put people first, listen to new and diverse ideas and collaborate toward greater innovation, speed and agility. This means investing in talent, technologies, and tools that empower you to own your career.

Join MUFG, where being inspired is expected and making a meaningful impact is rewarded.

We are MUFG. 360 years of heritage. A world-class set of businesses. And more than 180,000 employees in 50 markets. It’s no surprise that MUFG has grown to become one of the top five banks in the world. Our services include commercial banking, trust banking, securities, credit cards, consumer finance, asset management, and leasing. MUFG offers stability in an ever-changing market, providing services to high-profile clients worldwide.

Our vision? To become the world’s most trusted financial group. You’ll help us achieve it. 

The Financial Crimes Office for EMEA (FCOE) in London is part of the Global Financial Crimes Division (GFCD) headquartered in New York. It works to ensure that our organisation conducts its business such that we protect our reputation, our business, and our clients within the regulatory and legal framework. It is responsible for the establishment and maintenance of effective systems and controls to protect clients’ assets and to mitigate the risk that MUFG might be used to further financial crime.

MAIN PURPOSE OF THE ROLE 

The Sanctions Program Team is responsible for the effective running of the Sanctions Program across all

jurisdictions within EMEA. The team ensure the robust management of the broader Sanctions Control

Framework, in support of this they provide oversight, SME knowledge and support to other Sanctions

Teams and the delivery of key projects

This includes:

• Driving the implementation of MUFG Bank’s financial crimes risk appetite, policies and standards through working with Transformation and Technology partners, Country Compliance teams, Operations and Business stakeholders.
• Providing support and logistical management to enable Sanctions Programs to deliver its book of work efficiently and effectively across the EMEA region with specific responsibility for the management of Sanctions-related projects.
• Ensuring that our organisation conducts its business such that we protect our reputation, our business, and our customers within the regulatory and legal framework.
• As part of a leading global financial group, MUFG is required to act with integrity and meet our corporate responsibilities in the fifty-plus countries and regions where we operate. Ensuring we have a comprehensive financial crime compliance program is one of our most important responsibilities. MUFG has established the Global Financial Crimes Division in New York, USA to lead the program and each region under this program has a Financial Crimes Office.
• Financial Crimes Office EMEA (FCOE) is the regional office responsible for the establishment and maintenance of effective systems and controls to protect customers’ assets and to mitigate the risk that MUFG might be used to further financial crime in EMEA.
• MUFG’s financial crime compliance framework includes control processes designed to help the Bank detect, deter, and prevent financial crime as well as assess and mitigate related risks (i.e., money laundering and terrorist financing risk, sanctions risk, and bribery and corruption risk) in a manner that is consistent with applicable laws, rules, regulations, supervisory guidance, and commensurate with the Bank’s risk profile and risk appetite.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

In this role, you will drive the effective and timely delivery of changes that are required to enable continued compliance with sanctions and new payment regulations. This will be achieved through the timely delivery of an ambitious project which will require changes to payment and sanctions controls/systems. The evolution of the SEPA scheme will offer customers the option to settle payments in 10 seconds or less, 24 hours per day, seven day per week, 365 days per year. This development is a top priority and has high visibility across the EU and broader Eurozone. You will be responsible for enabling MUFG to deliver the process and system changes required to achieve this key regulatory commitment across EMEA. You will work with the Sanctions teams, MUFG EMEA branches, payment operations teams, and other project teams to ensure that this project delivers appropriate changes to financial crime controls, whilst considering key dependencies with other payment and sanction projects.

• Provide subject matter expertise on economic sanctions, and the related controls, in particular HMT, EU, and OFAC.
• Seeking to identify actions / tasks in order to implement improvements to relevant financial crime procedures or processes.
• Being responsible for ensuring that actions are appropriately assigned and delivered in a timely manor
• Collaborating and communicating with various teams and key stakeholders across the Bank.
• Working with the Sanctions Team and other action owners on the implementation of new controls and uplifts in procedures or processes.
• Owning and managing the delivery of payment-related projects, on behalf of Sanctions
• Assisting action owners in developing and delivering more detailed plans, in consultation with the appropriate stakeholders
• Providing the necessary status updates and reporting to Regional Sanctions leadership team consistent with agreed timelines
• Managing and escalating Risks and Issues
• Conducting continuous regulatory horizon scanning for changes in sanctions and payment regulations and guidance.
• Assess MUFG’s sanctions control framework against applicable regulations and guidance to identify areas for potential improvement or enhancement that may become requirements to be delivered through the project.
• Participate in MUFG and industry working groups to ensure that MUFG remains aligned with the latest industry developments and its peers
• Engage with senior stakeholders in local, regional, and global teams.
• Support other components of the sanctions team as appropriate.

WORK EXPERIENCE

Essential:

• Working experience in a central sanctions function
• A strong knowledge of banking and associated systems and controls for financial crime
• Working experience in project management
• Previous experience in delivering both business change and system related projects on behalf of the business

SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE

Functional / Technical Competencies:

Core

• Manages priorities effectively and delivers efficiently
• Demonstrates strong attention to detail
• A good understanding of the concepts of risk management and control
• A good understanding of Banking and Investment products
• Broad understanding of financial crime risk (Sanctions, AML and ABC) 
• Proactively identifies and communicates improvements to process
• Planning
• Project delivery
• Risk and issue management

Preferred:

• AML or Sanctions process knowledge
• Project management
• Experience of interacting with stakeholders at a senior level
• Strong understanding of sanctions systems and controls
• Strong relationship building and management skills
• Experience with payments or payment related projects

Education / Qualifications:

Preferred:

• Degree
• Relevant Qualification
• Project related qualifications

PERSONAL REQUIREMENTS

• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
• Results driven, with a strong sense of accountability
• A proactive, motivated approach.
• The ability to operate with urgency and prioritise work accordingly
• Strong decision-making skills, the ability to demonstrate sound judgement
• A structured and logical approach to work
• Strong problem-solving skills
• Excellent interpersonal skills
• The ability to manage large workloads and tight deadlines
• Excellent attention to detail and accuracy
• A calm approach, with the ability to perform well in a pressurised environment
• Excellent Microsoft Office skills

We are open to considering flexible working requests in line with organisational requirements.

MUFG is committed to embracing diversity and building an inclusive culture where all employees are valued, respected and their opinions count. We support the principles of equality, diversity and inclusion in recruitment and employment, and oppose all forms of discrimination on the grounds of age, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability, pregnancy and maternity, race, gender reassignment, religion or belief and marriage or civil partnership.

We make our recruitment decisions in a non-discriminatory manner in accordance with our commitment to identifying the right skills for the right role and our obligations under the law.

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