Onboarding Account Specialist, BSA / CFT

The Onboarding Account Specialist will review new account applications, collect and validate customer documentation, conduct customer due diligence, resolve onboarding exceptions, and escalate higher-risk or potentially suspicious activity.

You will work closely with Compliance, Operations, Fraud, Customer Support, Product, and external banking and identity-verification partners.

Responsibilities

• Review consumer and business account applications for completeness, accuracy, and compliance.
• Collect and verify identification, business, ownership, and supporting documentation.
• Perform KYC, customer identification, customer due diligence, and risk-rating reviews.
• Review sanctions, politically exposed person, adverse media, identity, and fraud alerts.
• Identify inconsistencies, missing information, document concerns, and financial-crime red flags.
• Communicate with customers to resolve onboarding issues and obtain additional information.
• Document review findings, decisions, and escalation rationale clearly.
• Escalate complex, high-risk, or potentially suspicious applications to Compliance.
• Maintain complete onboarding records and support audits, examinations, and quality-control reviews.
• Help improve onboarding procedures, workflows, controls, and verification tools.

Qualifications

• 5 or more years of experience in customer onboarding, KYC, AML, fraud operations, account opening, or financial-services compliance.
• Experience reviewing customer identification documents and account applications.
• Familiarity with BSA, AML, CFT, sanctions, customer identification, and customer due diligence requirements.
• Strong attention to detail, judgment, and written documentation skills.
• Ability to manage a high volume of cases while meeting turnaround expectations.
• Comfort handling sensitive information and escalating unresolved concerns.
• Ability to work effectively in a fast-paced startup environment.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience at a bank, fintech, payments company, brokerage, or banking-as-a-service provider.
• Experience onboarding both consumers and businesses.
• Familiarity with beneficial ownership, international customers, adverse media, OFAC, and identity-verification tools.
• Experience identifying document fraud, synthetic identity, or account-opening fraud.
• Spanish-language proficiency is a plus.
• CAMS, CAFP, CKYCA, CFCS, or a related certification is a plus.