Summary
Overview
Work History
Education
Skills
Timeline
Generic

Lawal Akins

Luxembourg,UK/Luxembourg/Switzerland

Summary

Detail-oriented, results-driven, and highly reliable KYC/AML/ - QC /Analyst with extensive experience mitigating and managing risks in Financial Institutions & Non- Banking Institutions. Proven track record of making crucial & informed decisions that provides valued contributions to the company. Known as a natural team leader, skilled in developing teams and handling challenging customer escalations. Strong current knowledge of compliance and legal issues involved in Counter Terrorism/Risk Escalation/KYC/Customer Due Diligence/Enhanced Due Diligence.

Overview

12
12
years of professional experience
2
2
years of post-secondary education

Work History

Quality Control- Compliance & Sanctions

European Financial Group (EFG Bank) - Switzerland
09.2024 - Current

• Second line of defense review and approval on existing high-risk client (HRC), Special High Risk Client (SHRC) sanctioned clients (SC), PEPs and SDNs.

• Identifying and verifying Source of wealth/Journey of wealth to align with written financial background information of the client

• Ensuring full drill down of corporate and complex ownership structure to ensure the final beneficial owner is identified per regulatory guidelines

• Transaction monitoring using tools like Globus to trace financial transactional history of clients to monitor and report suspicious activity while providing well detailed feedback to the customer relationship officers

• Conducting periodic training to CRO's and other relevant parties to ensure laid down processes are followed and within regulatory guidelines.

• Qualitative analysis of client's profile, including but not limited to financial breakdown, educational background and calculation of investment portfolios to determine if it corresponds with Asset Under Management (AuM).

• Analyses of sanctions related entities and SDNs individuals to assess rationale for business relationship.

Key Achievements:

• Wholistic understanding of Russia's sanction regime

• Indebt knowledge of regulatory enforcements imposed on Russia, rationale on sanction clauses by OFAC,UN,FCA, EU

• I support and work closely with the Head of Compliance in ensuring the review exercise meets legal and regulatory requirements. I identify and reporting any significant compliance risk issues to senior management

• I design a new sanction escalation framework which eases off reporting & exiting of high risk profile clients with opaque complex structures. These structures are considered to be unaligned with the bank's risk appetite. The seamless free route is to smoothen the process of exiting any sanction prone clients that falls short of the bank's area of interest. The old framework was tedious & outdated hence the new innovation serves as replacement

Senior KYC/AML Analyst

Caceis Bank - Luxembourg
07.2023 - 09.2024
  • · Conducted due diligence on cross national funds such as :
  • ODDO BHF Feeders Fund - German and French Funds
  • Round2Capital Funds - Scandinavian Funds/Charities/Foundations
  • Townsend Funds – Covered All Entity Types/ Jurisdictions
  • Carried out weekly stakeholder briefing and reports to keep abreast of current position on various files/address administrative bottlenecks
  • Conducted on boarding process independently for new on-boards, periodic reviews, event driven reviews and amendments
  • Engaged internal and external clients to help facilitate the on-boarding and maintenance processes
  • Gathered and analyzed all pertinent client information on PEPs identified from screening results
  • Took ownership of escalations and managing to resolution in a timely manner, keeping all stakeholders updated
  • Managed the co-ordination of cross border requests from multiple jurisdictions, working closely with local Fund Administrators including sharing information and providing guidance to other investors

Key Achievements:

• Built a strong stakeholder engagement team to help in the migration process

• Assisted the transfer agency team to consolidate and revive almost obliterated management information archive and establishing a mini group to pilot new MI which was successfully presented to the visiting stakeholders prior to merger and acquisition of RBC

• Ability to partialize effective client engagement skills by providing an UpToDate flow of case files review which were pending and client requisitions

• Spearheaded a mini team called the 'Oversight Team' where extra adhoc SME advisories provided

Senior Kyc/Aml Analyst - Transfer Agency

Royal Bank of Canada (RBC)
Luxembourg, Luxembourg
02.2023 - 07.2023
  • Worked closely on regulatory guidelines of European Fund Administration to ascertain positions of regulated entities and Closed Funds
  • Ascertained the AIFM of the Funds and requested an AML Letter/Comfort letter to leverage off
  • Provided Transfer Agreement Agreement/Transfer Stock Form to the Transferor so as to determine who the Transferees are and number of Shares being subjected to them
  • Conducted end-to-end KYC on Transfer Agency (regulated entity),The Transferee & Transferor by requesting ASL,AML letter, Ownership structure, Trade Register, Proof of Regulation & conducted Screening via World Check & RDC
  • Gathered and analyse all pertinent client information on PEPs identified from screening results
  • Requested additional documents from Manco (Management Company) who acted as agent to determine if falls within client's risk appetite

Key Achievements:

• Implementation, development and analysis of electronic Identity and verification (eID&V) system, clients’ case file administration and management information (MI) in relation to the customer due diligence process.

• Provided professional technical support and SME - like advisory to Know your Customer (KYC) team.

• Anchored different stakeholder meetings and providing periodic MI reports for Anti Financial Crime defected cases returned for amendments and making presentations to stakeholders by analyzing key blockers impacting on case movements/reworks.



Snr Financial Crime Analyst (Wealth Management KYC

Deutsche Bank
Luxembourg, Luxembourg
06.2022 - 12.2022
  • Conducted end-to-end KYC on Guarantor and Borrowers to bring their files up to date
  • Used the Prospectus to determine if there is General Partner additional Authorized Signatories so as to have a full capture of the client's profile
  • Performed Sanctions screening and PEPs identification as well as reviewing potential negative news hits across Global Client Management Divisions
  • Conducted daily Transaction Monitoring Report by reviewing account transaction of high risk customers and PEPs and investigation of any unusual activity on accounts and writing of daily annotation report to the Money Laundering Reporting Officer (MLRO)
  • Secured, analyzed and evaluated documents for KYC profiles remediation and undertook AML assessments for high risk customers

Key Achievements:

• Updated records with the outstanding requirements from customer relationship managers to complete the record for final approval.
• Carried out reviews on client records in relations to OFAC, UN, EU and related sanction matters, Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF)
• Carried out quality checks and audit on different client types like FCB, NBFI and Banks across all risk types with special understanding of Institutional Cash Management and Trade Finance Financial Institutions
within investment banking




Snr Sanction - Transaction Monitoring - Compliance

Bitpanda
02.2022 - 06.2022
  • Ascertained and verified customer's source of wealth and source of funds documents in order to have a clear and robust understanding on how customer had amassed wealth over time.
  • Identified authorised signatories and delved into complex ownership structures to capture Ultimate Beneficial Owners with percentage threshold so as to conduct full adverse media screening.
  • Used Zendesk to retrieve background information about client, their legal form, legal existence, proof of registration and to identify additional related parties
  • Took charge as the point of contact for KYC queries, monitoring the KYC inbox, and coordinated with relevant teams to obtain all required information
  • Managed new broker on-boarding requests from across the group and oversaw the entire process end to end

Key Achievement:

• Identified, differentiated source of funds/source of wealth on each client and determined purpose of opening a crypto account
• Headed weekly team meeting by presenting case scenarios/filling questions from high network individual clients who requested status updates, management formation on their various cases
• Acted as a senior point of contact to advise junior members of the team on any escalation issues or other
AML/KYC related issues





Compliance Risk Mitigation Analyst

Chiliz /Socios - Malta
11.2021 - 02.2022
  • Conducted sanction screening and adverse media search on all clients
  • Provided rationale/wrote a report on all hits identified to support (maintained/retained a business relationship) or escalate (exit a business relationship)
  • Acted as the contact person for assessing and opining on complex AML/KYC/Sanctions matters/transactions, including the necessity to escalate, when appropriate.
  • Proactive management of case pipeline throughout the end to end process
  • Ensured Quality Target is met in line with productivity targets
  • Maintained personal compliance of operational and regulatory risk

Snr Transaction Monitoring Analyst

Cross Card SA - Luxembourg
06.2021 - 11.2021
  • Worked tirelessly to meet regulatory deadline of CSSF by reviewing backlog of files and making decisive rationale as to retain or exit client business relationship
  • Investigated customer's SoW/SoF and traced current financial standings to leverage historical transactions of each account
  • Performed transaction review analysis to determine debit and credits and looked out for financial transactions that exceed thresholds
  • Reviewed customer's frequency of transactions and advised if account meets Business expectations
  • Lead execution of design and operational effectiveness testing of clients' financial crime risk management controls including due diligence, transaction monitoring, screening, and suspicious activity reporting processes.


Snr Transaction Monitoring/Fin., Forensic Analyst

Deloitte
03.2021 - 06.2021

• Conducted full transaction analysis dated back to 1year in order to capture any potential red flags on customer's account

• Thoroughly queried cheque(s) receipt to verify source of funds

• Conducted gap analysis on customer account and leveraging off on the discrepancy to determine if event driven review is required, at what frequency and advice either to rather exit or keep a customer

• Investigated and rationalized purpose of funds transferred and conduct further search on remitter to establish strong connection as to why transaction was carried out

• Filed SAR report to escalate cases to NCA


QC - Transaction Monitoring

Habib Bank Ltd
04.2020 - 03.2021

• Identified, investigated, and documented reports of unusual or suspicious transnational/ cross - national and local activity

• Suspicious activity reporting of client life cycle (SAR) and their financial economic profile

• Monitored client's spending habits and compares financial life style to meet current economic profile

• Used social media, internal system to match client's lifestyle and assess their financial standing

• Made use of Equation, RMS, FCCM and Data store to gather suspicious alerts about client and applying good rationale to disposition/discount negative alerts

• Investigated financial incomings (credits) and outgoings (debits) to ascertain if it meets targeted threshold of client


Snr Sanction Screening - Financial Crime Analyst

Deutsche Bank
02.2020 - 04.2020
  • Performed remediation and / or periodic reviews on clients
  • Worked out NACE codes to leverage off available information from the Business
  • Used Handel register to confirm all legal existence of clients in DE(German adoption location)
  • Conducted screening via Fircosoft /Lexis Nexis & RDC to mitigate risk of onboarding PEPs, RCA's and SIP's
  • Utilized Orbis Report to capture ownership information, nature of business, legal form, Date of Incorporation etc.
  • Identified and assess ultimate beneficial owners within complex ownership structures


Client Outreach / Case Management - EDD AML Union

Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS)
06.2019 - 12.2019

• Performed end -to-end Case Management & Business/Client Outreach process for CDD/EDD case profiling.

•Engaged in day to day communication with high net worth clients/ Business sponsors to request documentations and affirmations on clients in relations to lingering blockers

•Filled out KYC/AML client questionnaire to confirm requested information & documentation by ensuring request were mainly for targeted use/purpose

•Ad-hoc priorities of engaging in screening via COSIMA (Compliance Structure Intelligence Management) & RDC (Regulatory Data Corp) with the use of repositories like Smart Client, COT / Fenergo to obtain extra documentations

• Liaised with internal and external stakeholders daily to support and educate clients on KYC initiatives of the bank on general KYC/AML requirements

•Continually sought ways to facilitate and improve the end-to-end process and journey by leveraging on client feedback to improve on current performance

•Four eye quality check (QA/QC) on cases prepared by Offshore teams(Indian Branch - KYC Team) so as to meet regulatory standards/deadlines

EDD - Aml/Kyc Analyst (Correspondent Banking)

Deutsche Bank
10.2018 - 06.2019

•Performed PEP screening via Fircosoft and ran in-depth negative news screening on RCAs and PEPs via RDC

• Discounted Hits/escalated possible Hits with potential ML/TF via Lexis Nexis

• Involved in end-to-end screening of Legal Reps, UBOs , IBOs & Entities to analyse existing business relationship with Clients •Performed end-to-end KYC on all clients - Corporate/Non-corporate Clients & collective Investment Funds

•Worked out complex ownership structure to drill down to internal approved threshold

•Leveraged various case files and outsourced documents for remediation on correspondent banks

•Sourced legally acceptable documents to determine who constitute ownership structure/Fund administrators

•Worked out formulas/modalities to breakdown ownership structures (either complex or simple structures) and sourced documents via public platform to fulfil screening ID & V matrix


Transaction Monitoring Analyst

Citibank
03.2016 - 09.2018
  • Worked effectively with multiple complex data sources and/or technical analytical tools/resources to identify potentially unusual or suspicious activity as defined by AML/BSA regulations and industry best practices for AML/BSA analysis.
  • Identified, researched and reports suspicious activity.
  • Managed the investigative process from initial detection to disposition and filing.
  • Thoroughly and timely reviews reports and other investigative leads that potentially identify suspicious activity.
  • Formulated and recommends responses to potentially suspicious findings, reports such activity to the appropriate regulatory authorities, and supports MoneyGram’s forward-looking risk-mitigation response.
  • Completed all investigation outputs, which may include regulatory filing and other mitigation actions within required service level agreement (SLA) timelines.

AML/KYC (On-Boarding/Remediation)

Cooperative Bank
01.2013 - 03.2016
  • Reviewed existing client KYC files to ensure they are up-to-date with the firm's internal policies and local regulatory requirements. This includes updating records, verifying the completeness of documents, and identifying any missing information that needs to be collected.
  • Prepared a risk assessment form for each reviewed file and collaborate with the relevant legal teams to obtain the necessary approvals from the matter partners.
  • Assisted with the on-boarding of new clients. This involves confirming the terms of engagement for each new matter, liaising with legal teams to finalize these terms, and ensuring all documentation is properly recorded.
  • Conducted initial KYC checks for new clients, including running searches in public databases and websites, analysing the ownership or control structure, and assessing any potential risks associated with the new clients.

Education

Master of Science - Management

London Southbank University
London - United Kingdom
09.2013 - 05.2015

Diploma of Higher Education - Anti Money Laundering

New Skills Academy - CPD
United Kingdom
02.2020 - 06.2020

Skills

Strong communication & analytical skills

Highly attentive to detail

Stakeholder relationship management skills/Vibrant presentation skills

Ability to work discreetly & Independently without supervision or tip off (suspicious activity)

Ability to work under intense pressures

System & Regulatory Knowledge

Tableau - World Check - FERNEGO - COSIMA - Dow Jones -FACTIVA - FIRCOSOFT - RDC - KYC Swift - ACCUITY - Bank Check- IBAN Check- Compass - Equation - RMS - Data Store- WOLFSBURG Questionnaire - Slack - Zendesk

Regulatory Exposure

JMLSTG - FATCA - POCA - CSSF -WWWFT- OFAC- FATF- FATCA-MIFIID II- FINMA - Money Laundering Reporting Office Switzerland (MROS) - FCA

Timeline

Quality Control- Compliance & Sanctions

European Financial Group (EFG Bank) - Switzerland
09.2024 - Current

Senior KYC/AML Analyst

Caceis Bank - Luxembourg
07.2023 - 09.2024

Senior Kyc/Aml Analyst - Transfer Agency

Royal Bank of Canada (RBC)
02.2023 - 07.2023

Snr Financial Crime Analyst (Wealth Management KYC

Deutsche Bank
06.2022 - 12.2022

Snr Sanction - Transaction Monitoring - Compliance

Bitpanda
02.2022 - 06.2022

Compliance Risk Mitigation Analyst

Chiliz /Socios - Malta
11.2021 - 02.2022

Snr Transaction Monitoring Analyst

Cross Card SA - Luxembourg
06.2021 - 11.2021

Snr Transaction Monitoring/Fin., Forensic Analyst

Deloitte
03.2021 - 06.2021

QC - Transaction Monitoring

Habib Bank Ltd
04.2020 - 03.2021

Snr Sanction Screening - Financial Crime Analyst

Deutsche Bank
02.2020 - 04.2020

Diploma of Higher Education - Anti Money Laundering

New Skills Academy - CPD
02.2020 - 06.2020

Client Outreach / Case Management - EDD AML Union

Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS)
06.2019 - 12.2019

EDD - Aml/Kyc Analyst (Correspondent Banking)

Deutsche Bank
10.2018 - 06.2019

Transaction Monitoring Analyst

Citibank
03.2016 - 09.2018

Master of Science - Management

London Southbank University
09.2013 - 05.2015

AML/KYC (On-Boarding/Remediation)

Cooperative Bank
01.2013 - 03.2016
Lawal Akins