SarathBabu Karnakumar
Gregory Hills,NSW
Summary
Experienced banking professional with over a decade of expertise in financial market operations, corporate banking products including trade finance services, remittances, client relationship management, and treasury back office operations. Strong understanding of KYC, ECDD, and AML functions. Seasoned Analyst with a solid background in driving projects to completion and fostering client relationships. Demonstrates expertise in managing complex tasks and delivering impactful results in high-pressure environments. Proven ability to leverage analytical skills and team collaboration to achieve organizational goals.
Overview
20
20
years of professional experience
1
1
Certification
Work History
Senior Associate – Global Trade Operations
Commonwealth Bank of Australia
12.2024 - Current
- Processing of atleast 20 Documents presented under Letter of Credit & Collections, handles receivable & payable financing, Issuance of Bank Guarantees for Corporate clients and issuance of Bank guarantees against counter guarantees issued by overseas banks.
- Checking of documents and advising customers about the discrepancies in documents to comply with LC terms, Adding confirmation to LC, Discounting of LC bills.
- Performing AML/Sanctions screening of about 25 transactions such as related parties, Port of Loading, Port of Discharge, Goods, Transhipment ports if any, conducting price check evaluation of certain commodities and high-risk goods & jurisdiction.
- Escalating to Financial crime compliance for further review and approval.
- Checking of Overdue & unpaid bills, sending them a chaser to overseas banks, processing of payments and investigating unreconciled items from Nostro reports.
- Addressing client queries, educating them about how to prepare credit complied documents.
- Involved in Trade transformation project whereby implementing new systems and tools to improvise the existing process & automate document checking part.
- Getting rid of some of the old practices and moving them to paperless processing.
- Guided the seamless transition to a digital platform, effectively streamlining trade operations by centralizing document management and enhancing the accuracy and efficiency of transaction processing.
FX Settlements Officer
Citibank N.A (Citigroup Pty Ltd)
08.2023 - 12.2024
- Responsible for settling FX trades of Corporate clients, Institutional clients (Fund Managers) in systems to ensure the trade confirmations are correctly matched.
- Getting client’s affirmation on settlement figures for each currency and settle as per SSI.
- Adhering to client’s instruction to settle gross, net or Rollover of trade if any are properly communicated to Trading desk to ensure the positions are squared before the cut-off time.
- Approving netting figures in FXALL, Misys, GTSS, Bloomberg CMS and settling the same in a timely manner.
- Settling of Inter group FX deals and cash management FX auto booked by system for corporate clients against their Cross border fund transfer instructions.
- Identifying and resolving FX settlement issues such as SSI not setup, incorrect Standard Settlement Instruction’s picked up by system, cross verifying the same with client instructions before it gets paid out.
- Passing adjustment entries for fee charged by correspondent banks, internal book transfers in appropriate systems for each legal entity.
- Performing call back verification of settlement instructions before raising SSI setup and making manual payments, if it involves making payment to 3rd party taking necessary approvals and performing due diligence as per Citigroup policy.
- Setting up Remote debit with group entities on behalf of other business segments of Citigroup.
- Assisting with control activities, and performing UAT to launch new products and services successfully.
- Ensure appropriate escalation to management and/or permanent control (for compliance as appropriate) as soon as an issue is identified.
- Responsible for AML/ Sanctions screening and dispositioning or escalating the alerts by doing proper due diligence as per AML /Sanctions framework’s Match verification guidelines.
- Performing day end controls to ensure all the trade confirmations are sent, matched, settlements are complete without fails, sending chasers if any required.
- Responsible for advising tech support teams in updating Daylight saving time and holiday calendar.
- Assisting the client on boarding team and relationship managers while onboarding new clients and requesting for appropriate systems mapping and SSI setup.
- Directed the timely completion of trade settlements by coordinating with multiple stakeholders, ensuring compliance with regulatory standards and cross-verification of all client instructions to minimize discrepancies.
- Streamlined the FX settlements process by implementing enhanced validation protocols, reducing operational errors and ensuring timely and accurate transaction processing across financial platforms.
- Facilitated seamless communication between global financial institutions to expedite FX transactions, enhancing interbank settlement efficiencies and aligning with industry best practices.
Settlement Officer (Global Market Operations)
BNP Paribas
06.2022 - 08.2023
- -I was responsible for monitoring & Settling FX trades such as Spot, Swap, Outright, Options & Derivatives in systems to ensure the trade confirmations are matched and settled in a timely manner.
- Monitoring for pre-delivery trades, Roll-over and spot deals for same day settlements, work closely with Global Markets Trading desk & ALM Treasury FO to ensure that bank’s liquidity flows are managed efficiently.
- Troubleshoot, investigate and resolve unmatched FX trade queries from clients by liaising with relevant offshore teams, trading desk in case if the deal booked with discrepancies to avoid potential settlement issues.
- Hosting the daily EOD call with more than 10 teams and escalating transaction processing issues to the appropriate department and collaborate on a solution.
- Sending out minutes of the meeting to all the internal stakeholders & Senior Management post call.
- As part of reconciliation process for Nostro accounts, LORO and suspense accounts.
- Extract reports from Intellimatch system for investigation and identifying the breaks and assign them to relevant teams for resolving those breaks.
- Managing RITS - AUD Exchange Settlement Account with the RBA efficiently according to the defined priority tree & ensure daily intraday calibration is met throughout the day
Senior Analyst ECDD
Accenture Australia Client: Commonwealth Bank of Australia
10.2021 - 06.2022
- Dealt with High Risk Customer Escalations, Performed Enhanced Customer Due Diligence such as KYC Check, Source of Funds, Source of Wealth, Open Source searches, External Investigations through World Check and ASIC, AUSTRAC, Conducted searches on sanctions and embargo registers. Completed transaction analysis of more than 500 accounts related to HRC's.
- Profiling the customer with their risk identified and conducted a thorough analysis to identify the red flags, suspicious activities, AML/CTF concerning typologies.
- Escalating them to Business unit for their determination with my analysis and recommendation.
- Documenting the entire analysis in ECDD platform and requesting for KYC if required.
- Handled various typologies such as CEM, Drug Trafficking, Money Laundering, Tax Evasion, Structuring of cash deposit to avoid reporting obligations and layering of funds.
- Developed comprehensive reports on financial crime threats by synthesizing data from multiple sources, providing actionable insights to enhance compliance measures and mitigate risks associated with illicit activities.
KYC Analyst
Accenture Australia Client: National Australian Bank
08.2021 - 10.2021
- As part of KYC Remediation project, reviewed various client types that include Trust, SMSF, Unregulated Trust such as Discretionary Trusts, Deceased Estate, Incorporated & Unincorporated Associations.
- Performed KYC checks on all entities as per Applicable customer Identification program and resolved them by communicating with clients and business unit managers.
- Ensured that the KYC Remediation requirements were met in terms of Identifying, collecting, verifying, and storing the documents in compliance with AML/CTF program.
AML/KYC Analyst
Lawson Elliott Recruitment Pty Ltd. Client: BizPay Group Limited
06.2021 - 08.2021
- Reviewed the clients that are sole registered in the portal.
- Performed KYC check on Sole Traders, Partnership, Domestic Proprietary companies.
- Identified the clients that are non-compliant with AML/KYC Program.
- Remediated them by collecting the data from various source and validated them against ASIC, ABN Lookup, Credit Bureau and initiated the KYC process.
- Performed ID verification on beneficial owners, directors through automated ID & V process, screened the names of directors and BO’s against Global Sanctions list and against the PEP databases.
- Worked with Business Analyst & Product team in automating the KYC & Screening process.
Senior Manager –Treasury & Settlement Operations
China Construction Bank Corporation (DIFC Branch)
07.2013 - 10.2019
- Set up Trade finance operations, Treasury Back office operations of CCB DIFC branch.
- Prepared work flow process for all products & services offered by the bank.
- Prepared Operational procedures manual.
- Managed Treasury back office functions (Which includes authorizing of FX Swaps, Spot Forward Contracts, Money Market Deals, Interest Rate Swaps, Fixed Income Securities, Repo & Reverse Repo deals).
- Trade Settlements, confirmation processing and query resolution.
- Reconciliation of Nostro Balances with Treasury Front office, Reconciliation of Securities Position with Statement of Holding received from Safekeeping Custodian on monthly basis.
- Daily reconciliation of Front office systems with Back office systems to ensure that all the deals are successfully processed.
- Authorizing trade finance transactions according to the procedures set out in the operational manual and obtaining approval of transactions from the Risk management, Senior Management, Credit Dept. etc.
- Before disbursing & processing the transactions.
- Passing the relevant accounting entries and reversing contingent accounting entries upon due dates.
- Disbursing of Loans to Large Corporations, Disbursing Syndicated Loans, Project Finance, Aircraft Finance.
Senior Manager – Trade Finance & Factoring Operations
Menafactors Limited
10.2011 - 06.2013
- Developed product programs for receivables financing on with recourse and without recourse basis.
- Formulated strategy for growth initiatives, including industry and competitors’ analysis to enable development of receivables financing products
- Controlled and managed all operational and credit operations activities in the company.
- Supervision and structuring of factoring and forfaiting transactions as per the clients requirement in operating system
- Managed a team of 4 sub-ordinates, doing performance evaluation, setting the Job objectives and goals for them annually.
Assistant Manager – Trade Finance
State Bank of India
11.2009 - 10.2011
- Handled Trade finance related swift operations like remittances, Issuance of LC’s, Bank Guarantees, Acceptances and General correspondences, LC Advising, Adding Confirmation to LC’s etc.
- Handling all Bills presented under LC, Scrutinising of documents and advising of discrepancies to Customers
- Reconciliation of Nostro accounts on a daily basis.
- Interacting with clients for trade related queries and providing them the business advisory services
- Sending MM deal confirmation and settling the deals on time.
- Establishing of correspondent relationship with other banks and obtaining of exposure limits in order to take Exposure against the banks for trade finance related process.
- Reporting of Suspicious transactions to MLRO
- Processing of Buyer’s credit commercial loan against Letter of undertaking issued by Banks and monitoring the same.
- Chasing up of payments with other banks for the overdue bills.
- Opening of Term loan accounts, Disbursing Demand loans to Corporates, Disbursing Syndicated Loans.
Process Specialist – Trade Finance
Emirates NBD Bank
02.2007 - 11.2009
- Approving of Trade finance transactions like Import Collection bills, Loan Settlements, Import LC Documents Acceptance and Settlements, LC Advising, Issuance of Shipping Guarantee, Payments, Discounting etc.
- LC Advising, Import Collections, Adding Confirmation, Payments.
- Handling and sending of swift messages to banks and customers.
- Ensuring all transactions comply with regulations levied by UAE Central Bank, Internal Guidelines of Emirates Bank, Anti Money Laundering policy and Sanctions policy etc.
- Co-ordinating with Relationship Managers and Accounts officers of the Customers regarding Settlement Instructions, Extending of loans, Limits, Interest rates and Foreign Exchange rates relating to the transactions processed by the Processing Unit.
Senior Officer - Trade Services
Standard Chartered’s Scope Int’l (A wholly owned Subsidiary of Standard Chartered Bank Plc. UK)
09.2005 - 01.2007
- Checking of Export and Import documents presented to the bank under the LC.
- Negotiation of export credit bills as per UCPDC & ISBP.
- Advising of discrepancies in the documents to the customers through the system.
- Handling and sending of swift messages to banks and customers.
- Ensuring deliverables are met for clients of Standard Chartered bank’s branches in Singapore, Dubai, Japan, Taiwan, USA, UK and gulf countries as per SLA.
- Ensuring all transactions comply with Group Anti-Money Laundering Policy and reporting of suspicious transactions.
- Was leading a team of about 5 sub-ordinates, and Handled individually documents and other process pertains to UK and US countries.
Education
Bachelor of Commerce - Commerce, Accounting
University of Madras
Chennai, India10.1999
Skills
- Financial Market Operations, Settling FX Deals, Interest Rate Swaps, Cross Currency Swaps,
- Trade Finance products Issuing of Bank Guarantees, Documentary Credit, Checking documents, Confirmation, Discounting, Trade Advances, Cross border Payments, Disbursement of Corporate loans, Syndicated Loans, Air Craft Finance
- KYC, ECDD & AML functions such as ECDD/KYC process, Transaction monitoring, AML Screening, Common Reporting Standards (CRS) and FATCA compliance, Source of Funds, Source of Wealth UBO Identification
- Hands on experience ion RITS, Austraclear , Exigo , Finastra (Misys), Trade Nexus (GTSS), CLS, OMGEO Alert, FXALL, Misys, GTSS, Bloomberg CMS
- Project management, Critical Thinking,
- Training and mentoring, Reviewing SOP's
- Proficient in Payment systems, banking applications
- Trade lifecycle
- User Acceptance Testing
- Decision-making
- Attention to detail
- Relationship building
- Client engagement
- Complex Problem-solving
- Cross-functional teamwork
- Work Planning and Prioritization
Accomplishments
- Collaborated with team of more than 20 in the development of Trade Transformation Project.
- Achieved merging of 2 legal entities of BNP Paribas & BNP Paribas Securities & Services through effectively testing with different scenarios of liquidity management, cash flow projection before going live.
- Documented and resolved unreconciled breaks in a timely manner which led to potential income leakage and incorrect reporting of cash positions.
- Supervised team of 4 staff members.
Certification
- Certified Documentary Credit Specialist
- London Institute of Banking and Finance 2010
Languages
English
Full Professional
Tamil
Native or Bilingual
Timeline
Senior Associate – Global Trade Operations
Commonwealth Bank of Australia
12.2024 - Current
FX Settlements Officer
Citibank N.A (Citigroup Pty Ltd)
08.2023 - 12.2024
Settlement Officer (Global Market Operations)
BNP Paribas
06.2022 - 08.2023
Senior Analyst ECDD
Accenture Australia Client: Commonwealth Bank of Australia
10.2021 - 06.2022
KYC Analyst
Accenture Australia Client: National Australian Bank
08.2021 - 10.2021
AML/KYC Analyst
Lawson Elliott Recruitment Pty Ltd. Client: BizPay Group Limited
06.2021 - 08.2021
Senior Manager –Treasury & Settlement Operations
China Construction Bank Corporation (DIFC Branch)
07.2013 - 10.2019
Senior Manager – Trade Finance & Factoring Operations
Menafactors Limited
10.2011 - 06.2013
Assistant Manager – Trade Finance
State Bank of India
11.2009 - 10.2011
Process Specialist – Trade Finance
Emirates NBD Bank
02.2007 - 11.2009
Senior Officer - Trade Services
Standard Chartered’s Scope Int’l (A wholly owned Subsidiary of Standard Chartered Bank Plc. UK)
09.2005 - 01.2007
Bachelor of Commerce - Commerce, Accounting
University of Madras
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