Compliance Manager - Deputy MLRO

Job Description

Compliance Manager - Deputy Mlro

Responsibilities

• Transaction Monitoring Ownership: Design, manage, and continuously tune CVUAE’s transaction monitoring programme including rule governance, alert prioritisation, threshold calibration, and blockchain analytics producing regular MI on alert volumes, closure rates, and SAR conversion ratios for the MLRO and board.
• Suspicious Activity Reporting: Review and investigate escalated alerts, prepare well-reasoned SAR/STR narratives, and submit filings to the UAE Financial Intelligence Unit (UAEFIU) in a timely and accurate manner, maintaining a complete internal register of all cases filed.
• Customer Risk & Due Diligence: Oversee day-to-day KYC/CDD operations including EDD reviews for high-risk clients such as PEPs, high-volume traders, and clients from higher-risk jurisdictions, providing guidance to onboarding teams on complex or borderline cases.
• Sanctions Screening: Manage the firm’s sanctions screening process — reviewing and disposing of name-match alerts, maintaining documented screening decisions, and escalating confirmed matches to the MLRO with clear recommendations.
• Deputy MLRO Coverage: Assume full MLRO responsibilities during the Head of Compliance & MLRO’s absence, including SAR authorisation, regulatory engagement with the CMA and the UAEFIU, and board-level reporting, maintaining continuity of financial crime oversight at all times.
• Regulatory & Cross-Functional Engagement: Support the preparation of CMA submissions, inspection materials, and supervisory responses; represent the financial crime team in cross-functional forums to embed regulatory and AML requirements into new products, features, and client segments.
• Training & AML Culture: Design and deliver role-specific AML/CFT training across the organisation, maintain training completion records, and act as a visible subject-matter expert on virtual assets financial crime typologies and evolving regulatory expectations.
• Policy Governance: Draft, maintain, and enforce internal compliance policies aligned with CMA rules, FATF recommendations, and international best practices, ensuring the firm’s policy framework remains current and fit for purpose.
• Regulatory Documentation: Maintain all compliance registers, regulatory calendars, and audit preparedness materials to ensure operational transparency and readiness for CMA inspections and supervisory reviews.
• Regulatory Change Management: Monitor regulatory developments across UAE and relevant international frameworks, ensuring timely updates to internal policies, processes, and controls as obligations evolve.
• Crypto Asset Safeguards: Support the implementation of operational and technical controls to protect client assets, including wallet security protocols and asset segregation requirements.

Requirements

• Education: Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Risk Management, Law or a related field; a postgraduate qualification (LLM, MBA, or equivalent) is an advantage.
• Professional Certification: Holding CAMS, CFCS, ICA qualifications and CISI qualification as recognised by the CMA is advantageous.
• Experience: Minimum 4-5 years of hands-on AML/financial crime and compliance experience within a regulated financial services or virtual asset service provider, including demonstrable owne