Director of Transaction Monitoring & Screening

Equals; Amsterdam; On-site; EUR 110,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Contributory pension

Life assurance

Health insurance

Job summary

Equals is seeking a Head of Transaction Monitoring & Screening to lead a team ensuring safe operations and excellent customer experience. You will own TM, sanctions and screening, RFIs and SAR preparation, acting as a first-line risk decision-maker.

You will drive automation and AI thoughtfully, manage backlogs, and maintain strong governance with the MLRO, while growing a high-performing team in a fast-changing payments environment.

Qualifications

• Solid track record leading transaction monitoring and screening operations at scale.
• Experience with information requests and SAR/DAML preparation.
• Strong operational discipline with SLAs and audit trails.
• Experience introducing automation or AI into operations.
• Degree level education in relevant field; ICA/ACAMS certification preferred.
• Familiarity with UK FCA expectations or sanctions regimes.

Responsibilities

• Lead the monitoring and screening operation — TM, sanctions and screening, RFIs and SAR prep — with clear standards for investigation, disposition and escalation.
• Keep queues current; expose ageing and backlog as a trigger to act.
• Run screening as a real-time control with first-line procedures and timely escalations.
• Build an RFI function working with customer-facing teams to keep requests precise and non-accusatory.
• Ensure quality of evidence and narratives for the MLRO and SAR filings.
• Tune detection rules and thresholds with data/analytics colleagues to reduce false positives.
• Introduce automation/AI to handle routine work while maintaining human judgment for complex cases.
• Provide clear management information on SLAs, quality, cost to governance.
• Hire, coach and maintain a high-performing team.

Skills

Leadership

Financial crime ops

Automation/AI

SAR/DAML prep

Risk management

Threshold tuning

Hiring & coaching

Stakeholder mgmt

Data analytics

Education

Bachelor's degree or higher in law/finance/economics

Tools

TM/Screening systems

AML/CTF software

Job description

Equals is seeking a Head of Transaction Monitoring & Screening to lead a team ensuring safe operations and excellent customer experience. You will own TM, sanctions and screening, RFIs and SAR preparation, acting as a first-line risk decision-maker.

You will drive automation and AI thoughtfully, manage backlogs, and maintain strong governance with the MLRO, while growing a high-performing team in a fast-changing payments environment.