Lead Analyst, AML Compliance - US&Intl

Lead Analyst, AML Compliance – Denver, Colorado (Hybrid)

We are seeking a Lead Analyst to join Western Union’s Financial Intelligence Unit within the Global Compliance organization. This role is critical in mitigating money‑laundering and terrorist‑financing risks by identifying, escalating, and mitigating risk‑related activity.

• Responsible for the design of targeted, risk‑based transaction monitoring rules and control programs, particularly for rules associated with complex, impactful, or novel jurisdictions and products.
• Serve as a primary resource for Senior Analysts on methodology, rule logic, and review handling and translate management priorities into actionable tasks, ensuring consistent application of standards.
• Identify conceptual risks and translate them into systematic controls.
• Support the ongoing enhancement of our risk‑based program design as part of the Compliance Analytics and Design Team (FIU‑CA&D) team including assessments associated with WU’s organization, consumers, corridors/geographies, and products.
• Analyze and evolve the control and monitoring programs to be more dynamic as system capabilities are enhanced by working with live data.
• Support a strong Culture of Compliance where in-depth data analysis, open‑source research and intelligence gathering from existing Compliance departments is required to identify if Western Union’s products are being abused by individuals or organizations across 120+ jurisdictions while ensuring that Western Union designs and maintains industry‑leading risk mitigation programs & systems.
• Possess a high degree of integrity, confidentiality, independent and sound judgment, and professionalism, as well as excellent oral and written communication skills.

• Bachelor’s degree or 4 years of equivalent job experience in the financial services industry is acceptable.
• Advanced Microsoft Office skills (Excel, Word, and PowerPoint) including the use of pivot tables.
• Experience with Snowflake / SQL or Python preferred.
• Strong analytical skills required, investigative experience specifically transactional data analysis and exposure to transaction monitoring controls preferred.
• Detail oriented, excellent organizational skills, ability to multi‑task under tight deadlines.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Demonstrated initiative and creative problem‑solving skills.
• Understanding of the Global Money Remittances Industry as it relates to anti‑money laundering, terrorist financing and fraud typologies.
• Knowledge of the global laws and regulations applicable to money laundering, including the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), The USA PATRIOT Act.
• Understanding of international regulatory bodies and organizations.
• Team player with strong collaborative qualities and a positive demeanor.
• Ability to work on confidential and sensitive matters with a high degree of professionalism and discretion.
• Proven track‑record of successfully evaluating and providing analysis on transaction monitoring rule suites sufficient to support a conclusion that the candidate can work on more complex assignments, including but not limited to jurisdictions under novel monitoring, the introduction of new products, or rule suites that demonstrate substantial integration of regulatory / stakeholder feedback.
• Ability to successfully conduct quality control reviews on tasks performed by others.
• Ability to successfully manage multiple projects / work streams simultaneously and operate with minimal management oversight.

Western Union is positioned to become the world’s most accessible financial services company — transforming lives and communities. We’re a diverse and passionate customer‑centric team serving 200 countries, with over 8,000 employees.

The base salary range is $90,000.00 – $ USD per year. Total on‑target compensation includes base salary plus annual incentives that align with individual and company performance. Actual salaries may vary based on qualifications, skills, and competencies.

• Short‑term incentives
• Multiple health insurance options
• Accident and life insurance
• Access to best‑in‑class development platforms
• Flexible Time Off
• Medi…