Head of UK KYC Operations - Director

Company purpose:

Our company purpose is to contribute to a responsible and sustainable economy by financing and advising clients according to the highest ethical standards.

Our employer promise is built around three pillars:

1. Being a great place to work

2.  Committed to sustainability and having a positive impact

3.  Being dedicated to the development of our people

Business area

The Head of KYC Operations UK has the direct responsibility of the following teams/areas based in the UK:

• Data office: in charge of performing KYC at on-boarding and recertification

• SKYCO: in charge of KYC validation and ensuring that KYC analysis performed by Data Office in London and Shared Service Centre meet UK and Group KYC standards

• Transversal Projects/Reporting and off boarding: implement and maintain KPI/KRI reporting and manage client KYC off-boarding process

• Additionally he/she has oversight on and is in charge of coordination with Due Diligence activities performed out of the Lisbon and ISPL Shared Service Centres for UK clients:

• On-boarding and Recertification KYC activities performed by Data Office and Screening teams

• Sanction/PEP screening activities performed

• KYC Breach activities performed by CLM Trust team in Lisbon

• Regulatory pre/post-trade activities performed by CLM Regulations AML Transaction Monitoring activities performed by AML TM 1LOD

Job purpose

The Head of KYC Operations function holds operational KYC responsibility for CIB in the UK, servicing all CIB Businesses (FIC, Global Markets and Global Banking) and Coverage lines, ensuring that UK regulatory requirements and due diligence standards of BNP Paribas CIB regarding client knowledge, risk assessment and decision making are met at all times, ie when on-boarding new clients and during the life cycle of the client relationship.

Key responsibilities

Team management

• Oversee the daily management of UK KYC Operations

• Define individual objectives and run yearly appraisals with mid-year reviews if needed

• Full management responsibility; leading and developing a team of KYC individuals, providing clear objectives and guidance. This involves coordinating work of multiple teams based in different locations ie India and Portugal.

• Completes complex KYC activities, utilising in-depth knowledge of KYC procedures, to provide specialist support to the business to diagnose and resolve issues, develop procedures and monitor trends.

Production

• Provide managerial support and guidance to production teams to ensure production targets for recertification and on-boarding are consistently met throughout the year

• Ensure that KYC quality targets are reached, both for new on boarding and recertification

• Ensure that KPIs to track volumes/WIP/Backlogs are in place and consistent

• Manage escalations/complaints raised by team managers/member and external/internal clients

• Jointly with E2E Coordination team, regularly meet Front Office stakeholders to ensure KYC on-boarding and recertification process is as efficient and meets their expectations

Operational Risk, Governance and control framework

• Ensure that MIs and KRIs are regularly reviewed and utilised to identify risks, issues and future priorities; together with action plans to prevent risks arising

• Ensure that group and/or local requirements/policies are implemented as per target dates and anticipate/escalate issues stemming from such implementations

• Identify, address and follow-up new regulatory requirements impacting his remit and ensure timely implementation

• Maintain at all-time an adequate and effective ongoing oversight of outsourced arrangements:

- Clear oversight, challenge, ownership and full understanding of all the services provided to UK KYC Operations by the services centers across India and Portugal;

- Reporting, escalation of incidents;

- monitoring performance, escalation of risks and issues, and required execution of any local compensating controls/mitigation;

- Full ownership of the risks and associated controls of each of those services

This will need to be demonstrated by regular team governance forums, clear MI, regular risk assessments and documented escalation processes

• Ensure a robust and relevant BCP is in place and maintained up to date

• Ensure the team’s roles and responsibilities are regularly reviewed to meet the continually evolving its new challenges in line with CLM KYC Operations and the wider CIB strategies. This will require (amongst other things):

• Full alignment with the global functions the different teams within UK KYC Operations support. Such alignment will make sure that any project impacting the UK is well identified, risk-assessed and any specific needs or impacts for the UK are well considered in the execution plans;

Work with UK Operations management and Central CLM teams to define and deliver the strategic plans for KYC Operations, including monitoring progress and delivery deadlines

Requirements

• Professional qualification and broad knowledge of KYC principles and processes and their interaction with each other combined with deep expertise in KYC.

• Prior experience as financial security specialist.

• Expert knowledge of KYC principles and processes and able to translate knowledge and experience into recommendations to improve practices.

• Ability to build and experience in having managed day to day a strong high performing team with solid employee engagement and motivation.

• Expert knowledge of a wide range of policies, procedures regulations and legislation relevant to Operations function, with the ability to apply this knowledge to improve BNP Paribas processes and practices

• Strong working knowledge of professional standards and protocol and the ability to apply them to the Business to develop and improve BNPP processes and practices

• Ability to act as a role model, and quickly adapt behaviour, style, approach, priorities, communication or working methods according to the needs of the task, individual/group, situation, constraints and circumstances.

• Experience in operating as a people and team leader with a track record of leading teams to deliver performance objectives; may have experience of leading part of a wider Operations department.

• Excellent people management skills and an ability to work with individuals to set individual objectives and manage performance to ensure their delivery and grow / develop the individuals.

• Recognised as a highly effective communicator, who can present complex ideas / strategies and critical messages to large, culturally diverse and unfamiliar audiences skilfully.

• Excellent analytical skills with the ability to translate technical concepts and provide specialist guidance and advice to others: Advanced research, analytical and report writing skills: to review, analyse and evaluate findings. Also able to present complex issues in a succinct, simple and straightforward manner.

• Ability to defend opinion and proposals to target a specific and challenging audience

• Very experienced at managing internal and external relationships at all levels (including senior), and capable at working with them to understand requirements and define appropriate solutions. Recognised as a highly effective communicator, who can present complex ideas / strategies and critical messages to large, culturally diverse and unfamiliar audiences skilfully.

• Strong experience in managing key stakeholder relationships, with an excellent ability to negotiate, support and influence.

• Strong people management skills and an ability to work with individuals to manage performance to ensure their delivery of client objectives.

• Strong focus on accuracy and attention to detail and able to review and improve work of more junior colleagues.

• Excellent written and oral English skills in order to articulate technical issues and to be able to take the complex and make simple to enable effective communication with individuals across the business.

• Computer literacy and a good knowledge of a range of standard computer software (eg Excel).

And of course, we expect all our colleagues to embody and practice the Group values (alignment with the Bank’s strategy, commitment, work ethic, integrity and Code of Conduct).

A bit more about why you should join us

1.     We’re a great place to work

We aim for optimal work/life balance (depending on role, this includes hybrid working, flexible working and agile)

We are proud of our award-winning flexible benefits and health & wellbeing strategy. Our flexible benefits include:

• allowance of at least 26 days (plus bank holidays) – with option to buy and sell holidays.
• plans – a 12% non-contributory pension which has been moved to sustainable investments*, life assurance*, income protection and personal accident insurance.
• , neurodiversity assessment and support.
• in London – include physiotherapy, nutrition, massage therapy, physiology, mental health first aiders, seasonal flu vaccinations and free onsite fitness centre.

* Subject to relevant caps

2.     As the eurozone’s largest bank, we are committed to having a positive impact in the world.  

For example, we are committed to Net Zero in all of our financing and investment portfolios by 2050. By 2030, 80% of our energy production financing will be low carbon.

But impact for us means more than climate. It means empowering our people every day. Everyone gets four volunteering days each year - in 2023, we achieved over 18,000 hours of volunteering across the UK and reaching over 4,500 young people.

3.     We believe in our people

We support our people to develop skills to adapt to the ever-evolving world of work and to prepare for the jobs of today and tomorrow. We do this through a comprehensive training offering, talent programmes, mentoring, career days and inhouse career tools.

We are proud of the number of our people who progress and secure new roles internally. In fact, in 2023, nearly half of our positions in UK CIB were filled internally.

Investing in our people also means we have a collaborative and inclusive culture:

• Direct feedback from our people shows that our internal culture sets us apart from our industry peers.
• Each year, nearly 30,000 employees globally are involved in professional networks that play an active role in promoting Diversity and Inclusion within the Group. These include our:

Pride Network, Ability Network (which supports disabled employees), MixCity (gender equality network), Women in Global Markets, Women in Global Banking, Women in IT, Diversity Equity & Inclusion in Technology, Early Careers Network, Multicultural Network and Parents & Carers Network.

Equal opportunities

BNP Paribas is committed to providing a work environment that fosters diversity, inclusion, and equal employment opportunity without regard to age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership status, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation, or any other legally protected status.

Adjustments

We don’t want anyone to be disadvantaged in our recruitment processes, so if you have a disability or health condition which may mean that you’d benefit from some adjustments or additional support, please let us know as early in the process as possible.

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