Gloria Ike

Financial Crime professional with over 20 years' experience in AML, CTF, Sanctions, Fraud, Anti-Bribery & Corruption (ABC), and FOTE, with a strong focus on KYC advisory and complex case resolution. Recognised as a Subject Matter Expert in KYC, providing strategic guidance to the First Line of Defence and wider business on high-risk clients, PEPs, sanctions, and intricate corporate structures. Skilled in interpreting and applying regulatory frameworks including FCA Handbook, Money Laundering Regulations, JMLSG, FATF, OFSI, POCA, OFAC sanctions, and the Criminal Finance Act, ensuring robust compliance and risk mitigation.

Proven ability to advise on onboarding standards (CDD/EDD), transaction monitoring, sanctions screening, and fraud prevention, while delivering training and embedding best practice across teams. Adept at managing sensitive reviews, implementing effective controls, and supporting the evolution of financial crime frameworks. A trusted advisor with excellent communication skills, capable of simplifying complex issues for stakeholders and driving operational excellence in an ever-changing regulatory landscape.

Excellent knowledge of Investments and Asset Management, wealth management, Trusts, Charities, Nominees, Wholesale, Retail, Private HNW, Corporate Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A), Joint Ventures (JV's), Capital Market (Initial Public Offering (IPO), Secondary Offering (SO), Commodities Over-The-Counter (OTC) Trades, FX and various corporate structures and vehicles. Extensive experience with offshore entities in the BVI, Cayman Islands, Luxembourg, Jersey and Guernsey jurisdictions and within the MENA (Sub-Saharan) and APAC (Asian Pacific). Managed various sized teams over the last 8 years.

Financial Crime Compliance Manager - Santander UK - London

(2023-02)

Providing 2LOD support and SME advisory to the business, internal and external stakeholders and 1LOD Financial Crime teams with procedures, processes, and systems by providing subject matter expertise on queries regarding KYC & AML for high-risk cases, complex matters, PEP, Sanctions on OFAC, OFSI and EU regimes, Transactional Analysis and regulatory conduct matters for new business on HNW Personal and corporate clients and the launch of products.

• Reviewed complex cases submitted by First Line of Defense (1LoD), ensuring effective resolution and risk mitigation
• Reviewed and investigated Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) prior to MLRO sign-off and submission to the Sanctions Team
• Providing regulatory compliance oversight and support to the identification, remediation and resolution of Financial Crime related risk
• Horizon scanning monitoring regulatory developments to keep CDD, EDD, sanctions, and fraud procedures compliant; implementing controls to meet regulations and advised policy holders and the wider business on regulatory and sanction changes
• Designed and implemented a comprehensive Quality Control and Quality Assurance framework for Santander Consumer 1LoD, including designing and delivering training programmes and leading the route to competency process for operational teams
• Developed and implemented Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to strengthen quality assurance controls and ensure consistency across financial crime processes
• Conducting monthly QA reviews of financial crime prevention and detection measures to assess their adequacy and effectiveness
• Providing detailed report for 1Lod and 2LoD Senior Management on identified financial crime and reputational risks where controls have been overlooked. Advise on mitigation strategies to address these risks, ensure regulatory compliance, and recommend additional training where necessary
• Managed work‑in‑progress (WIP) pipelines using Salesforce to track case progress, prioritise workloads and improve workflow visibility
• Conducted quality assurance reviews on high-risk cases and provided final sign-off for board-level presentation, delivering clear findings and rationale to support acceptance or decline decisions
• Streamlining KYC/AML, Sanctions and Fraud policies, processes and controls by defining standards to manage financial crime risks and ensure that these standards are applied across the business in accordance with current regulations
• Setting, managing and maintaining policies to support the effective management and control of Sanctions and PEPs and High-Risk cases
• Engaging with internal stakeholders to support with the delivery of an effective policy framework and ensuring full understanding and awareness of relevant Sanctions upstream risk and regulatory changes
• Ensuring compliance with FCA Consumer Duty standards by embedding processes that deliver good customer outcomes and safeguard vulnerable customers
• Providing advice and training to the business on Consumer Duty
• Performed gap analysis of 1LoD KYC/AML, Sanctions, and Fraud frameworks; updated policies and procedures to meet regulatory standards and delivered thematic reviews to address identified gaps to 1LoD management
• Conducted thematic reviews through gap analysis, providing actionable insights to the business on potential risks and recommending additional controls and training where required
• Maintained the risk dashboards to monitor exposures against risk appetite, identify areas requiring investigation, and implement mitigation strategies where necessary
• Contributed to financial crime governance within a banking environment by participating in oversight committees to challenge initiative owners, assess control effectiveness, and identify emerging financial crime risks
• Provided strategic advice on control gaps and proposed enhancements to strengthen the bank's financial crime risk management framework
• Ensuring Financial Crime risks are considered in the day to day operation, such as in the development of new products and the taking on of new customers
• Ensuring the business complies with Bank Policies, Procedures pertaining to Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations, ABC, Fraud, FoTE and Sanctions
• Providing KYC/AML training across business and assisting in providing ABC and FoTE, ABC, Sanctions and consumer training to various departments requiring specific periodic training
• Upskilling 1LOD Financial Crime teams on KYC, CDD, EDD, QC, QA and onboarding
• Worked closely with system and change teams during onboarding workflow enhancements, testing controls, operational processes, and risk-rating methodologies

Quality Assurance Manager - Santander UK - London

(2022-04 - 2023-02)

• Led a project team of QA analysts to ensure onboarding and periodic reviews were conducted in line with established AML regulatory standards, following the 2021 FCA S166 review
• Functioning as a first point of contact for all AML quality assurance queries
• Maintaining the Financial Crime Operations Quality Assurance framework
• Drafting, reviewing and finalising AML policies and procedures as well the Standards Operating Procedures and Work Instructions
• Ensure the route to competency is effectively executed by the team, strengthening overall proficiency and enhancing operational effectiveness
• Conducting root cause analysis to identify financial crime and reputational risk issues, determining appropriate mitigation strategies, and the implementation of effective controls, and preparing detailed reports to stakeholders on findings with recommended mitigations and additional controls
• Ensuring that all Financial Crime QA checks are completed on a weekly basis and that evidence of checks is produced and retained on file
• Providing weekly constructive feedback to Analysts through weekly calibration calls discussing errors identified and suggesting solutions that should be implemented to resolve and mitigate identified issues
• Providing timely constructive feedback to external stakeholders through weekly alignment calls advising on errors identified and suggesting solutions that should be implemented to resolve and mitigate identified issues
• Liaise with relevant Process and Policy holders on any change gaps to processes and policy recommending improvements to current documents
• Communicating all agreed changes to QA Analysts in a timely manner
• Ensuring all QA Logs are kept up to date and communicated to relevant stakeholders on a weekly basis
• Design, implement and maintain the QA process and procedures documents
• Designed and rolled out Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) in collaboration with the 1Lod and QC, enhancing operational efficiency, audit readiness, and end‑to‑end quality assurance standards
• Have an oversight of weekly and monthly MI, and ensure it is produced in a timely manner, providing insightful commentary and explanations of MI output
• Devise coaching solutions to support QA Analysts

CDD Oversight Manager - Link Market Services Limited - London

(2017-05 - 2022-04)

• Built and oversaw managing the CDD teams in the UK, Ireland, and Crown Dependencies 1LOD
• Led end to end AML/KYC framework across the various jurisdictions
• Provided strategic AML guidance and best practice for onboarding clients linked to offshore jurisdictions, including Jersey, Guernsey, BVI, Cayman Islands, and Luxembourg
• Responsible executing end to end processes for CDD, writing and implementing new CDD policies, procedures, and training material, insuring this is constantly kept in line with all new regulations or guidelines pertinent to the business across four jurisdictions
• Improved operational efficiency by overseeing WIP processes through dashboards, internal systems reporting tools and workflow automation
• Developed and embedded a new complaints procedure, ensuring clear workflows, consistent handling standards, and effective escalation paths across UK, Ireland, and Crown Dependencies operations