Periodic Review Analyst (KYC)
95% skill overlap
Your role
KYC Analyst
Full profileYour role
- L3 salary
- Not published yet
- Upcoming dated changes
- 10 changes ahead
What the role does
A KYC Analyst carries out know your customer (KYC) checks so that a financial firm knows who its customers are and what risks they bring. The role verifies identity documents, identifies beneficial owners, screens customers against sanctions, politically exposed persons (PEP) and adverse media lists, assesses money laundering risk and documents the result in a customer file. It applies EU anti-money laundering rules and Financial Action Task Force (FATF) standards on customer due diligence. It is a common entry role in financial crime.
Read a day in the life
A day in the life
The analyst opens the case queue: six new customer files and two escalations returned from quality checks. The first file is a private individual opening an investment account. The analyst checks the passport and proof of address, confirms the source of funds against payslips and a property sale, and runs sanctions, PEP and adverse media screening. One media hit refers to a different person with the same name, so the analyst records why it is discounted. The next file is a small company with two shareholders. The analyst checks the company registry, identifies the beneficial owners and requests a missing shareholder register from the relationship manager. After lunch the analyst handles a file rated high risk because the customer has business links to a high-risk country, and prepares an enhanced due diligence summary for approval. Mid-afternoon a quality checker returns a file with a missing document, which the analyst fixes. The day ends with updating case notes and the workload tracker.
Levels
- L1 Starting out
- L2 Independent
- L3 Senior or specialist
- L4 Leads a team or an area
- L5 Leads the function
Full level descriptions and job titles
The EFO level names are the common scale; job titles differ between employers.
| Level | What the work looks like | Typical years | Typical job titles |
|---|---|---|---|
| L1 Starting out | Completes standard KYC files for lower-risk customers with procedures and checklists, runs screening, requests documents and learns AML rules and systems under quality review. | 0-2 | Banks: Analyst, Junior Analyst, Associate (asset servicing), Trainee, GraduateAsset servicers: Junior, Specialist (entry), Officer |
| L2 Independent | Handles medium and high-risk files end to end, including enhanced due diligence and complex ownership, makes risk ratings for approval and trains L1 analysts. | 2-5 | Banks: Analyst / Senior Analyst, AssociateAsset servicers: Specialist, Senior Specialist, Senior Officer |
| L3 Senior or specialist | Senior KYC analyst or quality reviewer. Reviews complex and high-risk cases, interprets policy for difficult structures, supports procedure updates and represents KYC in projects. | 5-9 | Banks: Senior Associate, AVP, Assistant ManagerAsset servicers: Senior Specialist, Expert, Team Lead (small team) |
| L4 Leads a team or an area | Leads a KYC team or hub, owns service levels, quality and backlog, and is the escalation point for difficult cases, business disputes and audit findings. | 8-14 | Banks: VP, Manager, Senior ManagerAsset servicers: Team Lead, Manager, Head of Section |
| L5 Leads the function | Head of KYC or client due diligence for a legal entity or region. Accountable for the KYC operating model and standards and reports on financial crime risk to senior management. | 12+ | Banks: Director, Executive Director, Managing Director, Head of functionAsset servicers: Head of Department, Director |
Skills
Where the skill weights come from
Each role lists its skills with a tier and a weight. The weights of one role add up to 100 percent.
Source: the EFO role catalogue, built from the ESCO classification and reviewed by the editors.
The percentage is the skill's share of the role; the bars are drawn relative to the anchor skill, which is shown full.
Critical
- Know your customer due diligenceWeight 15.4%Relevant to you
- Anti-money laundering regulationWeight 10.3%Relevant to you
- Sanctions regimes and screeningWeight 10.3%Relevant to you
Important and supporting skills 18
Important
- Attention to detailWeight 5.1%Relevant to you
- Investigative reasoning on anomaliesWeight 5.1%Relevant to you
- Professional written communicationWeight 5.1%Relevant to you
- Ticketing platforms (ServiceNow)Weight 5.1%Relevant to you
- Ethical judgment in grey areasWeight 5.1%Relevant to you
- Working to tight deadlinesWeight 5.1%Relevant to you
- Transaction monitoring and reportingWeight 5.1%Relevant to you
- Client service mindsetWeight 5.1%Relevant to you
- Data cleaning and validationWeight 5.1%Relevant to you
Supporting
- Conduct and investor protection rules (MiFID II, FINRA, SEBI)Weight 2.6%Relevant to you
- Querying data with SQLWeight 2.6%Relevant to you
- Integrity and discretionWeight 2.6%Relevant to you
- Risk judgment and escalation instinctWeight 2.6%Relevant to you
- Process mapping and redesignWeight 2.6%Relevant to you
- Organisation and prioritisationWeight 2.6%Relevant to you
Useful
- Visualisation tools (Power BI, Tableau)Weight 0.9%Relevant to you
- Data protection and privacy law (GDPR, CCPA, DPDP)Weight 0.9%Relevant to you
- Stakeholder managementWeight 0.9%Relevant to you
Processes
The work the role takes part in.
What each process covers
- AML transaction monitoringMain
- Client onboarding and KYCMain
- Sanctions screeningMain
Where the role concentrates
How AI is changing the role
Document reading, identity verification, registry lookups and screening are increasingly automated, and AI tools draft adverse media summaries and pre-fill customer files.
Read the full assessment
Document reading, identity verification, registry lookups and screening are increasingly automated, and AI tools draft adverse media summaries and pre-fill customer files. Much routine file preparation is shrinking. The European Banking Authority reports AI use in EU banks for anti-money laundering work with expectations on explainability and governance. Value grows in judging complex ownership structures, assessing source of wealth, deciding which media hits matter and checking automated outputs. The EU Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA) and the new EU AML rulebook push for consistent, well-documented due diligence.
Dated changes for this role
- EU Digital Identity Wallets: banks must accept themRelevant to you
- Swift defers SR2026 and the end of unstructured addressesRelevant to you
- Instant payments: banks outside the euro area must receive instant euro transfersRelevant to you
- UK cryptoasset regime: application window and start dateRelevant to you
- Instant payments: payment and e-money institutions join the obligationRelevant to you
Salary snapshot
Salary figures are not published yet
The L3 salary range for this role, with its sources, will appear here when the salaries section opens.
Certifications
- CAMS
- ICA Diploma in Compliance
- CIPP/E
Concepts to know
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Your role
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Sources
KYC (Know Your Customer)Know Your Customer is the process a firm uses to establish and verify who its customer is, who owns and controls it, what the relationship is for and how risky it is, before onboarding and throughout the relationship. In EU law it is carried out through customer due diligence measures.
PEP (Politically Exposed Person)A politically exposed person is someone who holds or has held a prominent public function, such as head of state, minister, member of parliament, senior judge or board member of a state-owned company. PEPs, their family members and close associates require enhanced due diligence, for at least 12 months after leaving office.
FATF (Financial Action Task Force)The Financial Action Task Force is the intergovernmental body, created in 1989, that sets the global standards on anti-money laundering, counter-terrorist financing and proliferation financing through its 40 Recommendations. It evaluates countries in mutual evaluations and lists jurisdictions under increased monitoring.
Adverse media screeningAdverse media screening is the search of news and other public sources for negative information about a customer or related party, such as links to fraud, corruption, organised crime or sanctions evasion. It supports risk rating and enhanced due diligence. Also called negative news screening.
Explainability (AI)Explainability is the ability to describe, in terms a person can understand, why a model produced a given output, for example which factors drove a credit decline. It supports validation, human oversight, customer explanations under the GDPR and AI Act transparency duties.
AMLA (Anti-Money Laundering Authority)The Authority for Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism, set up by Regulation (EU) 2024/1620 and based in Frankfurt, coordinates national AML supervisors and FIUs and drafts technical standards. From 2028 it will directly supervise a group of high-risk cross-border financial entities.