The AML Analyst

About Me

My journey into the financial crime/compliance field was not linear in any way. I initially graduated from the University of British Columbia in 2023 with a BCOMM specialising in Marketing. While job searching in late October 2024, I wasn’t sure if marketing was the right field for me, and after exploring, I came across this field and was immediately intrigued.

Through ACAMS, I studied and gained a foundation in the field, which I applied to my first internship at the Bank of Bahrain and Kuwait (BBK). During this internship, my enjoyment flourished as I was exposed to the intricacies of analysing transaction histories, identifying suspicious behaviours, and reasoning through STR filings. The work was analytically demanding, and the purpose behind it was clear, helping my interest grow.

After BBK, I decided to get my CAMS certification to further delve into the field, and since then, I moved to London to continue growing in the field. I completed an internship with Zeepay, a start-up payment services fintech, where I expanded my experience in transaction monitoring, KYC and CDD, SAR filing, and policy reviews. I am also currently completing an MSc in Financial Investigations at the University of Lancashire.

I started The AML Analyst because I wanted a new and engaging way to stay current with the financial crime field. With the ever-changing regulatory landscape, reading about it wouldn’t keep me engaged, but through the writing I post, I hope to develop a deeper level of engagement and understanding of regulation and financial crime news. That’s what this blog is for.

The aim of the blog is to take recent regulatory developments, enforcement actions, or policy shifts and examine them critically. The goal is not to summarise the news, but to understand it, what it means, and where the gaps are. The focus areas are AML and transaction monitoring, sanctions, and regulatory policy updates.

– Akshat Mittal