Kassandra Bolstead

Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) Review for a Large, Multinational Financial Institution (November 2023- Present)

Simultaneously operated within multiple workstreams as a risk analyst, including the Specialized SAR team, duplicate profile review, and Quality Analyst, until the dissolution of these teams.

Risk Analyst (February 2024 - Present)

• Reviews, edits, and provides feedback to analysts regarding the quality of their work, along with determining if the analyst’s decision to file a SAR was correct.

Quality Assurance (QA) (May – September 2024)

• Assisted in the identification of cases with errors to present to the team of upwards of 100 people
• Assembled training information and case examples to be presented at weekly team trainings and process improvement calls.
• Compiled weekly case trends and errors of the Level 1 analysts utilizing Pivot Tables within Microsoft excel. These files were uploaded to a team SharePoint weekly, and emailed to the analyst team leads.

Duplicate profile reviews (July 2024 - August 2024)

• Assited in a 10% QC of a population of 51,021 potential duplicates (groupings of potential duplicates at times upwards of 30 accounts).

Level 1 (L1) analyst (January – February 2024)

• Worked at the L1 level analyzing the customer’s transactional data along with researching the customer to make the determination of whether or not to file a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR)
• Once the determination was made a narrative would be written with supporting data and submitted for RA review.

Below-the-Line (BTL) SAR Review (November 2023 – December 2023)

• As a QC (quality control analyst), she reviewed the client’s transaction monitoring cases to identify whether they were sufficiently dispositioned.
• Assisted with creating job aids and guidance documents for other QCs and client use.

Correspondent Banking Transaction Monitoring for a Large, Multinational Financial Institution (September 2020 – October 2023)

Quality Control: (November 2021 – October 2023)

• Responsible for developing, onboarding, and training new analysts as they joined the project.
• Provided thorough feedback for each review and delivered procedural knowledge.
• Maintained perfect metrics data entries regarding analyst feedback within checklists which were sent to the client.
• Participated in preparing and working multiple case types including complex transactions between financial institutions, Monetary Instruments, and detailed cases involving upwards of 1,000 transactions.
• Operated as the designated team lead for complex case assignments.
• Committed to learning multiple case types by establishing expertise in 10 different workstreams, where the job requirement involved four main workstreams.
• Streamlined the feedback system for over 300 analysts, which resulted in a reduced number of disputes.

Analyst: (September 2020 – November 2021)

• Evaluated patterns of atypical activity within bank transactions pertaining to domestic and international individuals and entities.
• The alerts are completed by performing reviews, which include analysis of data, researching companies involved in questionable transactions, and writing narratives on cases to determine if they should be closed or escalated for further review. Utilized KYC (Know Your Customer) profiles to validate customer identities and previous activity.
• Subject matter expert for technology improvements in a control pod that improved efficiency for all analysts on the project.
• Was on the pilot team testing for an automation tool used for data standardization.
• Analyzed data and completed reviews maintaining a high-quality score while consistently exceeding the engagement average.
• Acted as team lead for large case assignments ensuring they were completed in a timely manner.