KYC Manager (F49559D)

Referment is working with a UK-regulated payments business on a KYC Manager appointment. The company serves businesses and high-net-worth clients with international payments, multi-currency accounts, card issuing and related financial services, with every client supported by a dedicated relationship manager. It is now building out its first-line KYC framework, and this role leads that work.

The Role

As a first-line KYC Manager, you'll lead the KYC team and own the end-to-end client onboarding journey, keeping it seamless, compliant and aligned with both regulatory standards and internal policy. You'll develop and maintain comprehensive KYC procedures, continuously looking for ways to streamline them, and establish a scalable, consistent framework for ongoing reviews — planning and prioritising the review schedule and managing the capacity to deliver it.

Ongoing monitoring is central to the mandate. You'll oversee continuous monitoring reviews of clients, assess their financial-crime risk and the surrounding controls, and build the framework for channels so the right validation controls are in place. Working closely with the second line and the MLRO, you'll approve first-line assessments for submission to AML, raise internal SARs, act as the escalation point for all financial-crime queries, and raise issues to senior management and the second line in a timely manner.

You'll also develop the management information that supports governance, audit and second-line oversight, and communicate regularly with clients — tracking remediation of findings from assurance reviews and helping them stay compliant with emerging regulatory changes. There's a real people element here too: you'll manage, coach and develop the KYC team.

The role is remote across the UK, with visits to the London office roughly two days a month, as agreed with your manager.

What We're Looking For

• Extensive KYC or onboarding experience within a financial institution, ideally with exposure to EMIs or payment institutions.
• Good knowledge of the UK regulatory landscape, including the FCA Handbook, the Money Laundering Regulations and JMLSG guidance.
• Experience with screening and case-management platforms such as ComplyAdvantage or LexisNexis.
• Proven ability to conduct open-source research to identify adverse media on clients and business partners.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills, comfortable influencing and negotiating at a high level and escalating risks appropriately.
• A detail-oriented, analytical mindset, comfortable working under pressure and delivering against agreed SLAs.
• Right to work in the UK without visa sponsorship is required.
  
  

A compliance qualification such as CAMS or ICA would be an advantage, as would additional languages. This could suit a KYC or onboarding team lead from a payments, e-money or banking environment ready to own an entire first-line framework, or a financial-crime specialist stepping into their first full management mandate.

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