Banani Talukdar

• Lead financial planning and analysis activities for a USD 150M engagement with TD Bank, ensuring alignment with corporate and client goals.
• Own end-to-end invoice tracking and revenue recognition process; coordinate with delivery teams and client finance stakeholders for timely and accurate billing.
• Prepare monthly Gross Margin (GM) and Operating Margin (OM) projections, analyze variances, and provide financial insights to senior management.
• Partner with project managers and delivery leads to forecast budgets, track actuals, and manage financial risks across multiple workstreams.
• Conduct month-end and quarter-end financial closures including accruals, reconciliations, and revenue adjustments in compliance with Wipro and client standards.
• Drive cost optimization initiatives and track operational efficiencies to support margin improvement targets.
• Develop and automate dashboards and financial trackers to improve visibility into project financials and operational KPIs.
• Support audits (internal/external) by ensuring accurate documentation and compliance with SOX and other financial controls.
• Collaborate with global finance, procurement, and delivery teams to manage headcount, resource allocation, and contract financials.
• Assist leadership with preparation of financial reports, decks, and business reviews.

• Established and enforced project management standards and methodologies.
• Managed project portfolio, prioritizing, allocating resources, and mitigating risks.
• Oversaw resource management, ensuring skilled personnel availability.
• Developed and managed project budgets, ensuring cost control.
• Acted as primary contact for stakeholders, facilitating communication and reporting.
• Identified and mitigated project risks, developing contingency plans.
• Implemented quality control processes and conducted regular audits.
• Established KPIs to measure project success and PMO effectiveness.
• Managed change impacts, ensuring smooth transitions and minimal disruption.

• Led cross-functional teams through all project phases, ensuring successful delivery within scope, time, and budget constraints.
• Demonstrated strong leadership skills by effectively managing the entire employee lifecycle, including hiring top talent, conducting performance appraisals, and fostering a collaborative work environment.
• Proactively prepared and delivered comprehensive WBRs (Weekly Business Reviews) and MBRs (Monthly Business Reviews), providing actionable insights and driving strategic decision-making for the account.
• Ensured stringent quality standards by conducting meticulous quality checks on 10%-20% of the team's cases, enhancing operational excellence and mitigating risks.
• Developed and executed project plans including scope definition, risk assessment, and resource allocation, resulting in on-time and within-budget project deliveries.
• Established and maintained effective communication channels with stakeholders, fostering transparency and building strong collaborative relationships.
• Pioneered the development of comprehensive policy documents and tailored training plans for new projects, streamlining processes and ensuring a smooth onboarding experience for team members.
• Exercised astute financial acumen by managing the Profit and Loss (P&L) for the account, optimizing revenue generation and cost efficiency.
• Spearheaded the integration of cutting-edge technologies and tools to enhance project efficiency and streamline processes.

• Handling delivery & driving growth in Financial Crime (AML/KYC operations) within Risk/Analytics for a large social media giant with global FinTech operations.
• Adept in conducting comprehensive investigations on Sanctioned entities/individual, capture facts from Primary and Secondary data sources using the internal tools & application including open internet websites.
• Dis-positioning the case based on supporting facts & evidences and notating the research and findings in the summary.
• Prepare and present monthly dashboards, reports and business reviews.
• Understand and review the sanction screening guidelines and procedures and raise clarification request in case of any ambiguity.
• Reviewing and monitoring team’s performance and provide SME/QC support wherever required.
• Review policies and procedures, regulatory compliance training for compliance with applicable laws and regulations including OFAC/ HMT, suspicious activity reporting (SAR) and KYC regulations.
• Part of the Business Excellence team as Operations black belt, mentoring Lean and Green Belt projects.
• Conducting ideation session for Business Excellence.

• Understand the Business need and gathering the requirement from internal stakeholder.
• Organizing & Lead Requirement Gathering (Elicitation) meetings using techniques like Interviews, Questionnaires, Interface Analysis, Document Analysis, Brainstorming Sessions and Focus Group Discussions with Various Vendor.
• Conducting “AS-IS” and “TO-BE” analysis and suggest fit for Business Solutions by designing a Change Strategy.
• Prioritization of requirements using MOSCOW and Business Value methods followed by documenting as BRD, FRD, Change Request.
• Performed quality assurance (functional testing) and user acceptance testing (UAT), facilitating the on-time and acclaimed “go-live” of the application.

Projects Handled

• Enhancement of the PB onboarding (KYC) tool:
• Digitization of the onboarding tool for Singapore and Bahrain booking center private banking customers. As per the current scenario, CSM would fill out the KYC form manually and upload it in the FCRM tool. The requirement was to automate the process in which details can be filled in the tool, and cases can be assigned to the operations team for further processing, saving time and effort.
• Version Enhancement of the International Private Banking System, Singapore Branch.
• Complete version: Enhancement and migration from PBS to IPBS. Participated in enhancement and change requests to enhance the efficiency of business-critical processes and modules in the Private Banking domain, such as Client CRM (Client Relationship Management), domestic and international mutual funds, private equity funds, etc.
• Engaging extensively with Product team stakeholders to gather requirements for various internet banking processes, including a single portfolio view.

• Managed KYC/AML compliance, conducting enhanced due diligence for MAS, Singapore, and Bahrain regulators.
• Taking care of regulatory requirements in terms of KYC, AML reporting, FATCA reporting, etc. Provide dedicated and robust specialist KYC expertise for the Standard KYC Refresh process to our Client Service Manager teams.
• Led a team in performing full KYC due diligence on diverse customer profiles, which enhanced risk management.
• Maintained meticulous documentation of AML procedures, investigations, and findings for internal and external audit purposes.
• Prepared and submitted timely and accurate reports to regulatory authorities, detailing suspicious activities, and compliance efforts.
• Process knowledge on Know Your Customer, Transaction Monitoring, Transaction Analysis, and Suspicious Transactions.

• Managed 200 private banking clients (HNI – NRI) for their service requests with ICICI Bank.
• Seamless processing of high-value transactions through payment systems such as NEFT, RTGS, and SWIFT, etc. Passing transaction entries through Finacle.
• Knowledge of payment concepts such as SWIFT messages (MT), serial, and cover method.
• Oversaw forex transactions in various currencies (USD, GBP, Euro, etc.). and managed NRI investments across fixed deposits (NRE/NRO/FCNR), dollar bonds, mutual funds, insurance, loans, real estate, cards, and all applicable banking products.
• Prioritized service quality and customer satisfaction, maintaining a deep understanding of product offerings, and ensuring adherence to SLAs.
• Attend regular meetings with the customer to ensure their level of understanding of the services purchased and being delivered.
• Ensure delivery teams meet their contracted obligations by following through with management on corrective actions.
• Prepared and circulated monthly dashboards, highlighting key MIS to stakeholders.
• Knowledge of NRI regulations, such as FEMA.