Sara Zahid
London,UK
Summary
Sanctions SME in search of a role where I can be challenged in a fast paced environment. I have many transferrable skills from my years working in various operational areas of the Banking and Finance sector, and revel in the opportunity to further develop these skills to add value to any team, particularly within financial crime.
Overview
11
11
years of professional experience
2011
2011
years of post-secondary education
Work history
Sanctions Team Leader – Financial Crimes Unit, Compliance
National Australian Bank
Melbourne, Australia
12.2015 - 01.2017
- Manually review Swift messages caught in sanctions filter and action appropriately in order to protect Nab from potential sanctions breaches.
- Investigated complex sanction cases-including correspondence with internal and external stakeholders and banks.
- Ensure key operational risks and/ or compliance implications associated with change initiatives ,new products/services are fully considered as required by the risk policy Committee procedures.
- Monitor performance , risk and compliance requirements and provide feedback to business managers/process owners.
- Simplify and continuously improve the quality and effectiveness of the risk management and/or compliance system.
- Develop and implement policies and procedures to ensure that emerging risks and risks inherent in existing processes or that are associated with change processes are identified, evaluated and managed across the organization.
- Present , provide training and coaching of staff to increase operational risk and/or compliance awareness.
- Assist in leading and motivating team members including modelling organizational behaviours coaching/mentoring ,performance management ,identifying training/development needs.
- Work force planning including developing weekly and monthly plans to ensure optimal performance of the sanctions team.
- Assist in updating process and procedure guidelines during AUSTRAC and Hongkong Monetary Authority(HKMA) Audits.
- Represent the Sanctions Team in interbank forums and floor walks for graduates and dignitaries.
- Successfully conducted UAT on Norkom 6.1and was an SME for transitioning the sanctions filter from Hotscan to Norkom.
- Created and implemented Normalisation process for Norkom which reduced the hit rate.
- Assisted the team and provided guidance as an sme in absence of the people leaders.
- Training all staff member on Norkom,Swift alliance and payment correspondence.
- Improved customer satisfaction through close collaboration with the team.
Sanctions /KYC Analyst – Financial Crimes Unit, Compliance
National Australian Bank
Melbourne, Australia
12.2012 - 01.2015
- Doing correspondence inter bank through swift.1000 a day
- Daily conducting payments through swift.
- Performing Sanctions/embargo checks (onshore and offshore).
- Managing the daily review process of escalated alerts to ensure that agreed timelines are met.
- Ensure that the business is informed of risks and regulatory obligations.
- Comprehensive knowledge of international banking.
- Performing audit and risk assessment.
- Conducing Quality reviews.
- Manually review SWIFT messages in sanctions filter and action appropriately in order to protect NAB from potential sanctions breaches.
- Strong knowledge of international sanctions regimes.
- Sound knowledge of financial crime risk policies and procedures.
- Provide weekly and monthly reporting data to enhance the sanctions filter with external intelligence provided by monthly deep drive.
- Escalated higher risk or complex requests to more senior analysts and or management for guidance/directions.
- Conducting suspicious monitoring reviews.(SMR)
- Handled escalated cases professionally, resolving issues efficiently without compromising compliance standards.
- Completed quality overview on all alerts to ensure completeness and compliance.
AML Analyst – Financial Crimes Unit, Compliance
Barclays Bank PLC
02.2009 - 04.2012
- Reviewing customer’s transactions and activities from a money laundering perspective.
- Identification, escalation and reporting of suspicious activity countered during transactional reviews.
- Coordination and follow-up with business on obtaining customer feedback for review closures.
- Consolidation of review reports, associated data and preparation of periodic MI for business information.
- Supporting the MLRO, for effective implementation of the overall AML frame-work.
- Managing, consolidating and reporting of Annual PEPs and High Risk customers review.
Sanctions Analyst – Financial Crime Unit, Compliance
Barclays Bank PLC
06.2008 - 01.2009
- Conducting screening against applicable lists such as OFAC and HMT, with the help of semi-automated tools for New Relationships and Paper Payments (non-Barclays parties).
- Validation of screening reports produced by operations to identify gaps and address short-falls.
- Escalation and reporting of matches from the screening for further review by supervisors and in case of PEP matches, appropriate action is taken for their enhanced due diligence.
- Daily consolidation of reporting and preparation of an extensive MI for business seniors and cluster.
- Weekly handling of Pep Tracker.
- Responding on Trillium and Scanit alerts.
- Assist with AML/CTF/Forensic risk assessments, independent reviews, compliance program development and client/Bankers training.
- Analysis and conducting gap analysis of complex transactional data.
Account Manager – HillPark Branch
Standard Chartered Bank
08.2005 - 05.2008
- Personal Financial Consultant for liabilities , Loans and Credit Cards.
- Cross selling for personal Loans and Credit Cards and Banca.
- Leading audit reviews to avoid gaps and to highlight issues pertaining to sales performance.
- Taking care of walk in customers and solving their queries.
- Looking after different wealth management products.
- Arranging different events.
- Managing a team.
- Achieving monthly sales targets.
Education
Masters of Accounting - Accounting
MIT
Melbourne /2012 - /2015
BBA - Accounting
College of Business Management (CBM)
Intermediate - undefined
Commecs Institute of Business Education
Matric Commerce - undefined
St. Josephs Convent High School
Skills
- Leadership Skills
- Sales Force Management
- Exceed – Voice Of Customer
- AML/CTF/KYC
- Payments expertise
- Swift Alliance/Norkom
- Risk assessment knowledge
- Process improvement understanding
- Key Performance Indicator (KPI) management
- Spot-check auditing
Custom
- Leadership Skills
- Sales Force Management
- Exceed – Voice Of Customer
- AML/CTF/KYC
- Payments expertise
- Swift Alliance/Norkom
Timeline
Sanctions Team Leader – Financial Crimes Unit, Compliance
National Australian Bank
12.2015 - 01.2017
Sanctions /KYC Analyst – Financial Crimes Unit, Compliance
National Australian Bank
12.2012 - 01.2015
AML Analyst – Financial Crimes Unit, Compliance
Barclays Bank PLC
02.2009 - 04.2012
Sanctions Analyst – Financial Crime Unit, Compliance
Barclays Bank PLC
06.2008 - 01.2009
Account Manager – HillPark Branch
Standard Chartered Bank
08.2005 - 05.2008
Intermediate - undefined
Commecs Institute of Business Education
Matric Commerce - undefined
St. Josephs Convent High School
Masters of Accounting - Accounting
MIT
/2012 - /2015
BBA - Accounting
College of Business Management (CBM)
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