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Sanctions Analyst
Department:Operations
Location:Madrid
About the opportunity
We are seeking an experienced and highly analytical Sanctions Analyst to join our AFC Operations Department. In this key role, you will manage escalations from Sanctions Analysts, act as a primary point of contact (PoC) for Compliance Sanctions and MLROs.
At N26, we enforce international financial sanctions and global risk management frameworks to ensure compliance with legal, regulatory, and internal policy requirements. As part of the AFC Sanctions team, you will play a critical role in investigations, regulatory escalations, and sanctions operations oversight, helping safeguard N26 against financial crime risks.
This role requires a deep understanding of sanctions risks, strong decision-making capabilities, and the ability to drive process improvements in sanctions screening and escalation workflows. You will also collaborate closely with Sanctions Compliance, MLROs, and AFC leadership to ensure effective execution of N26’s global sanctions framework.
About the opportunity
In this role, you will:
In this role, you will:
- Serve as the main escalation point for L2 sanctions alerts and complex investigations, ensuring cases are thoroughly assessed and resolved in compliance with N26’s AFC framework.
- Review, analyse, and validate high-risk escalations from Sanctions Analysts, ensuring appropriate decisions are made on potential true matches.
- Escalate confirmed sanctions hits to Sanction Compliance and MLROs ensuring structured documentation and audit readiness.
- Conduct quality reviews of L1 tasks, identifying areas for improvement and ensuring alignment with regulatory expectations.
- Maintain clear, structured documentation of investigations, justifications, and outcomes for regulatory, audit, and internal compliance reporting.
Process Optimisation & Operational Excellence:
- Refine and enhance sanctions screening workflows to improve efficiency, reduce false positives, and strengthen risk mitigation.
- Collaborate with Sanctions Modelling & Testing (FCP teams) to fine-tune screening models and improve alert accuracy.
- Identify and drive improvements in escalation pathways, ensuring smooth handovers between L1, L2, and Sanctions Compliance.
- Support the drafting or suggest modification of work instruction for the Sanction Operational team.
Stakeholder Coordination & Compliance Support:
- Act as the primary liaison between Sanctions Operations and Compliance teams, ensuring seamless collaboration on high-risk cases.
- Work closely with Compliance Sanction, MLROs, AFC leadership, and Legal teams to address complex sanctions matters and regulatory expectations.
- Provide operational insights for audit responses and regulatory inquiries
- Follow and adapt to changes in international sanctions regulations and support internal teams in adapting processes accordingly.
- Assist in managing requests from financial institutions and authorities, ensuring timely and accurate reporting.
Training & Knowledge Sharing:
- Support training sessions and knowledge-sharing initiatives for Sanctions Analysts
- Support onboarding and mentoring of junior team members, fostering a strong compliance culture.
- Contribute to internal Sanction learning initiatives to enhance expertise in sanctions risk management.
What you need to be successful:
What you need to be successful:
Background:
- 2+ years of experience in sanctions operations, financial crime compliance, or AFC investigations within banking, fintech, or payments.
- Strong understanding of sanctions risks, screening methodologies, and case-handling processes, with expertise in L2-level investigations and escalations.
- Familiarity with sanctions screening tools, alert adjudication processes, and regulatory reporting requirements.
- Deep knowledge of global financial sanctions frameworks.
- Experience working with regulatory inquiries, audits, and financial institution sanctions compliance requirements.
- Bachelor’s degree in Business, Finance, Law, or a related field (preferred but not essential).
Skills:
- Strong investigative and analytical skills, with the ability to assess complex sanctions risks and make sound decisions under pressure.
- Detail-oriented and compliance-focused, with a structured approach to documentation and reporting.
- Ability to manage multiple high-risk escalations simultaneously, prioritising effectively.
- Experience in process optimisation, with a proactive mindset for improving sanctions alert handling workflows.
- Good report writing skills, ensuring clarity and accuracy in investigation documentation.
- Basic data analysis capabilities (Excel, Google Sheets, or similar tools) to identify risk trends and process inefficiencies.
- Fluency in English is required (additional languages such as Spanish, Italian, German, French, Russian, or Arabic are a plus).
Traits:
- Proactive, solutions-driven, and able to navigate complex regulatory landscapes.
- Stakeholder management skills, ensuring effective collaboration with Sanction Compliance and AFC colleagues
- Resilient in a fast-paced, high-risk environment
- Committed to continuous learning and challenging the status quo.
- Adheres strictly to internal escalation protocols and regulatory compliance standards.
What’s in it for you:
- Accelerate your career growth by joining one of Europe’s most talked about disruptors.
- Employee benefits that range from a competitive personal development budget, work from home budget, discounts to fitness & wellness memberships, language apps and public transportation.
- As an N26 employee you will have access to a Premium subscription on your personal N26 bank account. As well as subscriptions for friends and family members.
- Vacation days vary depending on your location of work. Additional day of annual leave for each year of service.
- A high degree of autonomy and access to cutting edge technologies - all while working with a friendly team of peers of diverse nationalities, life experiences and family statuses.
- A relocation package with visa support for those who need it.