Manager, SAR Filing — BSA/AML & Sanctions Operations

Pathward; United States; Hybrid; USD 72,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Pathward is seeking a Manager, SAR Filing to oversee the SAR/CTR filing program within the BSA/AML & Sanctions Operations team. The role ensures timely, complete, and defensible filings, supervising SAR filing analysts and managing intake, onboarding, and escalating processes across internal and external resources.

Managers will ensure regulatory timeliness, maintain intake quality, and coordinate with Security, Program Management, and Compliance to meet FinCEN requirements while guiding a team

Qualifications

• 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 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.

Responsibilities

• 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.

Skills

SAR filing

BSA/AML experience

Regulatory reporting

Leadership

Quality assurance

Education

Bachelor's degree

MBA preferred

JD or Master's preferred

Tools

FinCEN e-filing

Case management systems

Job description

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 are a 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*SMART approach, 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.

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.

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.

Applications will be accepted for a minimum of 3 days after posting, and there is no predetermined date by which applications should be submitted.

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