Manager, SAR Filing — BSA/AML & Sanctions Operations

Pathward, N.A.; Sioux Falls (SD); Hybrid; USD 72,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Pathward, N.A. is seeking a Manager, SAR Filing to lead day-to-day SAR/CTR filing within the BSA/AML & Sanctions Operations team. You will supervise analysts, manage intake, and ensure timely, complete, and defensible filings in line with FinCEN and OCC expectations.

The role supports a hybrid remote model with onsite offices in several U.S. locations. Salary range is $72,000–$120,000/year plus benefits; CAMS and 6+ years of experience strongly preferred.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree required; advanced degree preferred.
• CAMS preferred; CFE, CFCS, or CRCM a plus.
• 6+ years of BSA/AML experience, including SAR processing, intake, or investigations.
• 2+ years of people leadership and/or oversight of consultants, vendors, or outsourced resources.
• Experience with SLAs, service levels, and quality standards in a regulated environment.

Responsibilities

• Lead day-to-day SAR/CTR filing program: timeliness, quality, and FinCEN e-filing accuracy.
• Supervise internal SAR filing analysts for SAR/CTR prep and quality review.
• Own intake process: receipt, completeness review, and routing of referrals.
• Manage regulatory timeliness and monitor aging, backlog, and capacity.
• Ensure intake documentation meets five-element baseline before hand-off.
• Balance workload across internal and external resources to protect timeliness.
• Oversee operational review of SAR referrals from Alerts and Cases teams.
• Coordinate escalation channels; ensure independent review and authority retention.
• Coordinate access controls for domestic/offshore staff with InfoSec and PM.
• Provide QA of consultant output and ensure dispositions meet standards.
• Facilitate hand-offs with SAR filing, Alerts, Cases, and Sanctions teams.
• Support vendor relationships and service reviews with the VP.
• Prepare intake artifacts for regulatory examinations and audits.

Skills

Leadership

Project management

Communication

Regulatory knowledge

QA oversight

Vendor management

Education

Bachelor's degree

MBA/JD/Master's preferred

Tools

Regulated transaction monitoring systems

FinCEN e-filing systems

Job description

Manager, SAR Filing — BSA/AML & Sanctions Operations

Remote

We are a hybrid, remote-office company dedicated to growing our talent anywhere!

We have onsite locations in: Sioux Falls, SD, Scottsdale, AZ, Louisville, KY, Troy, MI, Franklin, TN, Easton, PA.

At Pathward, we take tremendous pride in our purpose to create financial inclusion for all™.We area financial empowerment company that works with innovators to increase financial availability, choice, and opportunity for all. We strive to remove barriers that traditional institutions put in the way of financial access, and promote economic mobility by providing responsible, secure, high quality financial products.

We are a team of problem solvers and innovators who celebrate our differences and know that our unique perspectives make us stronger and well-positioned for success. We celebrate, and embrace, our team members through our*HUMBLE*HUNGRY*SMARTapproach, and we believe that we are strongest when we embrace the voices of our employees, customers, partners, and the communities we serve.

About the Role:

The Manager, SAR Filing is responsible for the day-to-day execution and oversight of Pathward's Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) and Currency Transaction Report (CTR) filing function within the BSA/AML & Sanctions Operations team, ensuring compliance with the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), FinCEN requirements, and OCC supervisory expectations. The Manager, SAR Filing leads the intake, triage, and quality-controlled routing of Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) referrals into the filing workflow, ensuring timely, complete, and defensible hand-offs to the filing team. Reporting to the Vice President, SAR Filing, this role supervises the internal SAR filing analysts and manages the day-to-day review of both internally generated SAR referrals and potential SARs surfaced by external reviewers. The Manager ensures all filings are accurate, timely, complete, and defensible, and that Pathward independently reviews and retains all decisioning and filing authority for work performed internally and by consultants.

What You Will Do:

• Manage the day-to-day SAR and CTR filing program: timeliness, quality, continuing-activity monitoring, and FinCEN e-filing accuracy.
• Supervise the internal SAR filing analysts responsible for SAR/CTR preparation, quality review, and FinCEN e-filing.
• Own the day-to-day SAR intake process — receipt, triage, completeness review, and routing of referrals into the filing workflow — across internal and consultant-delivered channels.
• Manage regulatory timeliness (SAR filing clocks, continuing activity deadlines) and ensure aging, backlog, and capacity are actively monitored and escalated.
• Ensure intake documentation meets the five-element documentation baseline and internal quality standards before hand-off to the filing team.
• Balance volume and coverage across internal and external resources; reallocate work to protect timeliness and quality.
• Oversee the operational review of SAR referrals originating from the internal Alerts and Cases teams.
• Manage the escalation channel through which internal teams and external consultants surface potential SARs; ensure each is independently reviewed and that Pathward retains all filing and decisioning authority.
• Coordinate least-privilege system access, data-handling, residency, and offboarding controls for domestic and offshore consultant staff in partnership with Information Security and Program Management.
• Provide and oversee independent QA of consultant output, ensuring third-party dispositions and referrals meet Pathward's validated standards before reliance.
• Coordinate hand-offs and feedback loops with the SAR filing team, Alerts, Cases, Complex Investigations, and Sanctions to ensure smooth end-to-end flow.
• Support the VP’s relationship management with consultants/vendors — contributing to service reviews, scoping, and continuous-improvement discussions.
• Support regulatory examinations, internal audit, and validation efforts by preparing intake artifacts and responding to information requests.

What You Will Need:

• Bachelor's degree required; advanced degree (MBA, JD, or Master's) preferred.
• CAMS preferred; CFE, CFCS, or CRCM a plus.
• 6+ years of BSA/AML experience, including SAR processing, intake, or investigations.
• 2+ years of people leadership and/or oversight of consultants, vendors, or outsourced resources.
• Solid experience in BSA/AML operations with direct SAR/CTR filing experience within a regulated financial institution.
• Experience managing to SLAs, service levels, and quality standards in a regulated environment; familiarity with transaction monitoring/case systems
• Demonstrated experience leading or supervising analysts.
• Experience overseeing or reviewing the output of third-party/outsourced or offshore review resources preferred.
• Experience presenting SAR metrics and program performance to senior leadership, examiners, and the Board.
• Deep expertise in SAR/CTR filing standards, continuing-activity monitoring, and FinCEN requirements.
• Quality assurance and reliance documentation for internal and consultant-supported review work.
• Strong grasp of offshore data-residency, GLBA/privacy, InfoSec, and OFAC/sanctions-nexus risk.
• Ability to evidence Pathward's supervision of outsourced work to an examiner standard.
• Strong communication and cross-functional collaboration across Compliance, Program Management, InfoSec, and Assurance.

Products & Services Knowledge

SAR narratives and CTR filings must accurately describe how funds move through each Pathward product across the BSA/AML & Sanctions Operations estate, and the external consultants this role helps oversee review activity across the full estate. The Manager and their analysts must hold working, product-level knowledge of the funds flows, typologies, and party designations across the Bank's product categories and its program-manager model, including:

• Card Issuing / Prepaid — GPR, payroll, corporate disbursement, gift, government-benefit and student cards, and the load/spend typologies (structuring, funnel accounts, bust-out) that drive alerts, investigations, and SAR narratives.
• Tax Products (EPS Financial / Refund Advantage) — refund transfers, taxpayer advances (including Emerald Advance®), and tax-office loans, and the IRS/ERO funds flows behind seasonal SAR/CTR volume.
• Acquiring (Merchant & ATM) — merchant/ISO/payment-facilitator activity, transaction laundering, and ATM cash-access typologies.
• Digital Payments & Faster Payments (Visa Direct / Mastercard Send) — push/pull disbursements, P2P, and cross-border rails.
• Consumer Lending, Commercial Finance, and Commercial Deposits — the CTR, continuing-activity, and 314(a) obligations Pathward retains as lender/bank of record and depository institution.
• The Bank-vs-Program-Manager framework — Pathward files all SARs, CTRs, and 314(a) responses, so the Manager (and the consultants they help oversee) must trace activity back through the program-manager escalation model.

The responsibilities listed above are not all inclusive and may be changed at any time.

Salary range: $72,000 – $120,000

The salary range reflects the minimum and maximum target for a new hire in this role. Individual pay within the range will be determined by multiple factors which can include but are not limited to a candidate’s experience, qualifications, skills, and location. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary for your location during the hiring process. Ranges may be modified in the future. This role is also eligible for an annual performance-based incentive opportunity. Pathward offers a comprehensive benefits package for eligible employees, including health insurance, 401(k) retirement benefits, life insurance, disability benefits, paid time off, and more.

Don’t have everything listed under qualifications? If you’re excited about this role but your experiences don’t match exactly to everything in the posting, we encourage you to apply anyway. You may be just the right candidate for this or other Pathward roles. Pathward is an equal employment opportunity employer and considers candidates for roles without regard to their race, sex, national origin, ethnicity, age, disability or any other category protected by law.

Who we are:

Our commitment to inclusion is woven into our DNA. We believe that we are strongest when we embrace the voices of our employees, customers, partners, and the communities we serve.

We provide equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status, pregnancy, national origin, age (age 40 and over), disability, genetic information, marital status, hair texture or hairstyle, ancestry, service in the uniformed services, protected veteran status, status as a victim of domestic violence or any other class protected by federal, state and local laws.

Knowingly submitting false information will result in disqualification for consideration of future positions, termination of employment and forfeiture of other rights.

Voluntary Self-Identification

For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self-identification survey. Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiring process or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in a confidential file.

As set forth in Pathward, N.A.'s Equal Employment Opportunity policy, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.

If you believe you belong to any of the categories of protected veterans listed below, please indicate by making the appropriate selection. As a government contractor subject to the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), we request this information in order to measure the effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuant to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categories is as follows:

• A "disabled veteran" is one of the following: a veteran of the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service who is entitled to compensation (or who but for the receipt of military retired pay would be entitled to compensation) under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; or a person who was discharged or released from active duty because of a service-connected disability.
• A "recently separated veteran" means any veteran during the three-year period beginning on the date of such veteran's discharge or release from active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval, or air service.
• An "active duty wartime or campaign badge veteran" means a veteran who served on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service during a war, or in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized under the laws administered by the Department of Defense.
• An "Armed forces service medal veteran" means a veteran who, while serving on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service, participated in a United States military operation for which an Armed Forces service medal was awarded pursuant to Executive Order 12985.

Voluntary Self-Identification of Disability

Form CC-305

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