If you are interested in this candidate, please contact Charlie Watson via email cwatson@cerfinancial.co.uk or call on 0207 626 6065.

0726384

CAREER HISTORY:

January 2024 – February 2024

Trading

Trade Surveillance Specialist

• Investigated alerts meeting the tight deadlines and cleared backlog in a timely basis.
• Independently investigated alerts and raised STORs with the relevant regulator as required.
• Identified control gaps and raised with the management committee to propose a resolution.

May 2023 - September 2023

Banking

Trade Surveillance Analyst

• Contributed to Trade surveillance efforts to ensure the firm is compliant with regulatory requirements and internal controls.
• Calibrated alerts to reduce false positive. Calibrating alerts required a good understanding of market microstructure, trading mechanism, trading pattern.
• Develop new models to capture risks. This exercise ensured CACIB evolves with the dynamic and changing regulatory environment.
• Perform KCSA Supervisory checks on a Monthly basis ensuring they are conducted on a timely and comprehensive basis and thorough feedback is provided to analysts. Monitor the error pattern and log the stats to monitor and ensure consistent upgrade in quality of alert closure.
• Designed and drafted procedures for the team for various alert models.
• Conducted Enforcement case reviews to ensure the bank’s control are reviewed on an on-going basis and design and implement new controls for any identified gaps.

January 2022 – May 2023

Banking

Surveillance and Monitoring Specialist

• Investigated and escalated alerts and worked closely with the Compliance Advisory and/Trading teams in the investigation process, discussed various STORs within the wider team and to conclude on the final step of investigation process.
• Provided feedback to various stakeholders on an ongoing basis to reduce false positives and drive improvements in the current generated alerts.
• Redesigned and automated the process of alert generation for Equity linked products eliminating the manual work required.
• Further developed upon the regulatory knowledge and best practises of the industry. Proactively attended industry event as part of my self-development.
• Perform supervisory checks for WL/RL reports and also trained and mentored Junior members of the team.
• Drafted SOP for processes and reviews conducted by the team.

June 2021 – November 2021

Market Surveillance Software for Financial Services

Senior Analyst - LSEG

• Successfully closed alerts generated by the system to ensure markets are functioning smoothly and efficiently and any potential or evident risks are quickly and effectively mitigated. Contacted relevant member firms on a timely basis to liaise and effectively.
• communicate quick and accurate action.
• Involved with the groundbreaking “Wise” direct listing (The first direct listing outside North America). Understood the
• mechanics and risks behind various available options and risk involved.
• Successfully monitored live Auctions, Circuit breakers, Price monitoring extension to ensure smooth and efficient functioning of the market.

February 2018 – March 2021

Banking

Surveillance & Monitoring Specialist

Communication Surveillance Analyst

• Proactively identified more efficient alert generation keywords ensuring control framework was adhered to thereby reducing the false alerts by 39%.
• Successfully identified, investigated, and closed Grade 2 alerts. Investigation involved knowledge of a deal flow, standard market practices and lingo. Liaised with various internal teams and stakeholders to collate information, understand the complete situation, and complete investigation appropriately.

Senior Trade Surveillance Analyst

• Successfully analysed and closed all automated surveillance alerts (SMARTS, Delta) across Commodities, Fixed Income and FX for OTC transactions and derivatives withing the SLA with a full understanding of regulations (MAR, MIFID 2, Benchmark Monitoring) whilst ensuring the bank is meeting its obligation to various regulatory bodies.
• Investigated and escalated alerts and worked with the Central Compliance team in the investigation process and filing of STOR and working closely with them for fact finding.
• Designed and implemented manual monitoring scenarios to be conducted on external platforms and internal trade processing system. Successfully redesigned the MAR manual reports using Python & R programming tools and Excel, thereby reducing the time required to produce these reports by 80% and enabling analyst to focus on analysis and investigation. Also created a DOI for the same.
• Diligently onboarded new systems to enhance the scope of surveillance. Proactively liaised with analytics team to reduce the number of false positives in the first derivatives & SMARTS system and to drive improvements in the alerts that are being triggered. Analysis of stats are produced to help with the feedback.
• Successfully conducted enforcement case reviews to ensure the bank’s control framework is robust and identify and close any gaps in the
• Created a training plan for team in Poland and trained the team. Created a knowledge repository to ensure new starters have an access point and information related to infrequent alerts is documented and centrally stored.
• Produced Weekly and monthly MI reports for senior management giving them visibility of the alerts ageing and worked closely to bring down any ageing alerts or issues.

Trade Surveillance Analyst

• Documented and reported findings of alert investigations, including execution of appropriate escalation procedures. Preparing reports for management regarding the status of alert investigation & escalation. Point of Contact within Hub location to provide Subject Matter Expertise on Market Abuse and market misconduct.
• Developed and maintained relationships with Front Office, Control Room, Middle Office, Market Risk, Product Specialists, and local/country compliance. Represent the surveillance function at meetings internally and externally.

March 2015 – December 2016

Banking

Equity Derivatives Quantitative Strategies Trade Validation Associate – AVP

• Verified trades within agreed SLA and escalated any issues and take ownership for resolution. Successfully verifying trade required in depth understanding of the various trade types, payoff structures, market conventions
• Liaised with trading desk, structuring, and sales to resolve discrepancies and proposed booking and documentation improvements.

February 2013 – January 2015

Banking

Commodity Exotics Trade validation

• Verified exotics & Vanilla trades on T on a timely basis and escalating any issues and take ownership for resolution. Trade type includes barrier, knock in, knock out and exotic strategy trades.
• Identified and escalated any control gaps and work with various stakeholders and take action to mitigate any impending risk.

July 2011 – February 2012

Banking

Commodity Exotics Middle Office Associate

• Consistently provided excellent support to the traders on the IP desk split between correlations, baskets, Cross Assets thereby becoming a go-to member of the team. The key to be successful in the day to day working required in-depth understanding of derivatives products, mastery of complex mathematical calculations and advanced excel skills.
• Managed risk by actively monitoring trades close to a barrier breach, Trigger level or expiry and working closely with the Traders & Marketers to raise it with relevant stakeholders and ensuring timely expiry & settlement process.
• Monitoring Limits and amending trades and indexes on T+1 basis for the ones affected by trading limits and reporting any substantial PnL change to the traders.

January 2010 – March 2011

Wealth Company

LME Trading Assistant

• Attained excellent knowledge and dynamics of Metals trading, gaining first-hand knowledge of the trading patterns/order flows and strategies of various players in the market.
• Successfully reconciled position for the business on a T+1 basis and ensuring that the desk has no market exposure. Also responsible for checking client’s position and liaising with client on any expiring positions.

June 2009 – August 2009

Trading

ETD Futures Trading Assistant

• Booked trades on various futures exchanges including LIFFE, EUREX, NYMEX, CME, CBOT with 98% accuracy.
• Gained excellent understanding of process flow in a trading arcade environment.

October 2008 – January 2009

Banking

Operations Analyst

• A middle office role supporting Precious Metal Traders with their physical and financial Trades whilst gaining knowledge and understanding of the trade processing and Physical delivery process.
• Diligently reconciled cash & energy breaks and reduced the number of breaks to zero (Average breaks being 37).

April 2008 – August 2008

Banking

Metals Desk Trading Assistant

• Booked trades with 98% accuracy resulting in higher client satisfaction.
• Accurately adjusted hedges using the current market data and monitored the orders against live data to ensure execution at the requested level.

March 2007 – February 2008

Banking

Reconciliation Analyst

• A unique position dealing with various commodity products - Metals, Power & Gas, Electricity, Physical Oil etc.
• Reconcile client positions, provide accurate client exposure reports to various departments within MS.
• Completed ad hoc projects from time to time including improving processes and documenting them.

EDUCATION:

July 2023 – July 2023

Python Level 1 & 2 – Le Wagon

June 2017 – November 2017

Executive Program in Algorithmic Trading - (Online delivery)

January 2015 – December 2015

Post Graduate Certificate in Finance – University.

February 2011 – July 2011

CISI Financial Regulation (Unit 3) & Derivatives (Unit 6)

September 2003 - June 2004

Post Graduate Diploma in International Business College.

June 2000 - May 2003

Bachelor of Commerce (Honours in Accountancy) University.

References Available Upon Request

If you are interested in this candidate, please contact Charlie Watson via email cwatson@cerfinancial.co.uk or call on 0207 626 6065.

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