Prasanna Hegde
Bangalore
Summary
Compliance professional with extensive experience in anti-money laundering investigations and sanction checks, currently serving as a senior compliance associate at Amazon. Expertise includes transaction monitoring, financial crime risk analysis, and payments screening, utilizing advanced tools such as Actimize and CAMS. Proficient in detecting suspicious transactions and supporting SAR escalations in line with global regulatory standards. Proven ability to collaborate across financial products to enhance risk mitigation strategies and align compliance objectives with organizational goals.
Overview
12
12
years of professional experience
Work History
Senior Compliance Associate – Product Compliance
Amazon Development Centre
02.2024 - Current
- Conducted product safety investigations using customer feedback management systems to identify potential compliance issues.
- Reviewed ASINs to verify compliance with safety standards set by regulators, suppressed non-compliant products, informed sellers, and requested testing documents.
- Identified products recalled by regulatory agencies and the legal team, and suppressed those products from the Amazon website.
- Drafted rationales for product safety concerns and established recall rules for Singapore and Australia marketplaces to ensure compliance.
- Ensured cross-border compliance across various marketplaces.
- Monitored notifications from regulators for product safety recalls. from regulators in Singapore and Australia for recalls on product safety concerns.
Senior Compliance Associate - Risk
Amazon
Bengaluru
11.2019 - 02.2024
- Conducted Tier 1 (quick review) and Tier 2 (deep dive) investigations of flagged financial transactions for APUK identifying money laundering, terrorist financing, and sanctions violations in compliance with AML/CTF regulations.
- Investigate cases flagged by Suspicious activity monitoring tools such as Noir, Calypso, Paragon, for the UK market, identifying potential money laundering, sanctions, and terrorist financing risks.
- Review case files and workbooks from Noir/Paragon to systematically analyze transaction details and customer activity patterns.
- Evaluated real-time and historical data points per case, systematically analyzing primary and secondary red flags across customer transaction patterns, account behaviors, and payment flows.
- Closed confirmed false positives with documentation and escalated cases with suspicious findings to Tier 3 investigation.
- Prepared data for Suspicious Transaction Report filings, ensuring accurate documentation of all investigative findings for regulatory submission.
- Identified and prevented fraudulent transaction patterns, including unauthorized account access, concessions abuse, false refund/return claims, and Prime abuse, protecting Amazon from financial losses.
- Executed enforcement actions ranging from warnings to account suspensions using the Paragon Investigations platform, ensuring marketplace safety and seller compliance.
- Identified fraud patterns and trends across investigations, providing actionable feedback on rule effectiveness, SOP enhancements, and workflow optimizations.
- Reviewed cases flagged through the Sanctions Screening Service (SSS) to block or escalate transactions involving restricted parties.
AML Investigator (For Correspondent Banking and Customer Level Monitoring- UK region)
Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC)
03.2017 - 10.2019
- Investigate alerts and transactions flagged by AML monitoring tools such as Actimize, CAMP, Mantas, and UCM for the UK market, identifying potential money laundering, sanctions, and terrorist financing risks.
- Conduct account-level and transaction-level investigations, including suspicious activity monitoring, sanctions screening, and review of SWIFT messages, and correspondent banking transactions.
- Analyze payment flows and routing patterns to validate transaction legitimacy, and identify red flags.
- Perform Level 1 alert disposition, efficiently closing false positives, and escalating suspicious cases to Level 2 / Level 3 with detailed supporting analysis.
- Prepared and drafted Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) and Unusual Activity Reports (UARs), ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements across jurisdictions.
- Liaise with internal stakeholders, including KYC teams, Compliance, Relationship Managers, and Onshore partners, to gather additional information (RFI) and support investigations.
- Maintain comprehensive audit trails and documentation for all investigations, in line with regulatory and internal compliance requirements.
- Conducted research using internal systems, public databases, and third-party tools to assess and mitigate client and counterparty risk.
- Identified trends, patterns, and emerging risks, providing actionable insights and recommendations that enhanced monitoring effectiveness.
- Support quality assurance, calibration sessions, and procedural improvements to enhance investigation accuracy and efficiency.
- Checking the client's payment activity and routing of funds to validate whether the transaction is legitimate.
- Sending an RFI to the Relationship Manager, seeking further details pertaining to the alerted payment or transaction, if found suspicious.
- Escalate high-risk and reputational-risk cases promptly to senior management and compliance teams.
- Provide training and mentorship to new team members, and act as a Subject Matter Expert (SME) for AML investigations.
- Assigned workload to the team and ensured completion within stipulated SLA.
Article Assistant
BlueSquare Management Consultants Private Ltd.
Bangalore
01.2014 - 12.2016
- Conducted a variety of audits, including statutory, internal, bank, tax, and STPI audits, to ensure regulatory compliance.
- Evaluated and implemented internal controls to enhance financial accuracy.
- Acquired hands-on experience in accounting and auditing practices, including taxation and financial analysis.
- Provided consultancy service to the clients.
Education
MBA - Finance
SMU
BengaluruB.Com -
MESCC
SirsiSkills
- Microsoft Office proficiency
- Application of AI tools
- AML case assistance tools
- World-Check and Actimize expertise
Languages
- English
- Hindi
- Kannada
Timeline
Senior Compliance Associate – Product Compliance
Amazon Development Centre
02.2024 - Current
Senior Compliance Associate - Risk
Amazon
11.2019 - 02.2024
AML Investigator (For Correspondent Banking and Customer Level Monitoring- UK region)
Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC)
03.2017 - 10.2019
Article Assistant
BlueSquare Management Consultants Private Ltd.
01.2014 - 12.2016
MBA - Finance
SMU
B.Com -
MESCC