Enterprise Architect for Financial Crimes

This role requires on-site presence at our Seneca One Tech Hub in Buffalo, New York, for one week per month.

Company Profile

Founded in 1856, M&T Bank is a regional financial institution with a long-standing commitment to financial strength, community banking, and responsible innovation. The bank invests in technology, data, and processes that improve customer outcomes, strengthen resilience, and support sustainable growth.

Job Summary

Provides enterprise architecture leadership across financial crime and fraud prevention capabilities. Defines technology strategies, target-state architectures, integration patterns, data foundations, and roadmaps spanning Anti-Money Laundering (AML), Know Your Customer (KYC), Customer Due Diligence (CDD), sanctions, transaction monitoring, adverse media, fraud prevention, digital identity, behavioral analytics, case management, and investigator workflows across Consumer, Commercial, Institutional, Payments, and enterprise operations.

Primary Responsibilities

• Define and evolve financial crime and fraud prevention architecture strategies and roadmaps aligned with business priorities, risk appetite, regulatory obligations, enterprise standards, and the evolving threat landscape.
• Maintain current-state and target-state architectures across customer due diligence, KYC, sanctions and watchlist screening, adverse media, transaction monitoring, fraud detection, identity verification, authentication, behavioral analytics, alerting, case management, investigations, remediation, and regulatory reporting.
• Define and connect the distinct capability needs of AML and financial crime compliance, fraud prevention, identity and authentication, and insider threat management, where applicable.
• Define enterprise patterns for customer and counterparty identity, entity resolution, graph analytics, event streaming, feature and decision services, model execution, alert generation, case integration, evidence, and data lineage.
• Guide the integration of platforms such as NICE Actimize, LexisNexis Bridger, BioCatch, Prove, Socure, Bottomline Insider Threat, and comparable services. Product-specific experience is beneficial, but platform choices remain subject to enterprise standards and strategy.
• Embed cybersecurity, privacy, model risk, resilience, explainability, auditability, data governance, and evidence requirements into architecture decisions.
• Define production controls for analytics and AI/ML models, including approval, validation, monitoring, performance thresholds, drift, explainability, false-positive management, and investigator outcome feedback.
• Partner with Financial Crime, Fraud, Operations, Payments, Digital Identity, Cybersecurity, Data, Legal, Compliance, Model Risk, business, and technology stakeholders to resolve cross-domain dependencies and sequencing decisions.
• Evaluate vendor and platform options for functional coverage, enterprise fit, data needs, integration, cost, resilience, third-party risk, and the avoidance of unnecessary duplication.
• Provide architecture governance and lifecycle oversight from strategy through implementation and production operation, while maintaining the distinction between architecture accountability and day-to-day delivery ownership.

Domain and Architecture Expertise

• AML, KYC, customer due diligence, beneficial ownership, sanctions and watchlist screening, adverse media, transaction monitoring, case management, suspicious activity investigation, and regulatory reporting.
• Fraud typologies and controls, including account takeover, payment fraud, check fraud, social engineering, mule networks, synthetic identity, first-party fraud, and insider threats.
• Digital identity, identity proofing, authentication, behavioral analytics, device and network intelligence, customer communications, and step-up or interdiction workflows.
• Financial crime and fraud data architecture, including entity resolution, customer and counterparty identity, event streaming, graph analytics, lineage, provenance, quality, retention, and authoritative sources.
• Analytics and AI/ML architecture, including model lifecycle management, validation, explainability, performance monitoring, drift, false-positive reduction, human review, and feedback loops.
• Modern architecture patterns, including APIs and API management, microservices, event-driven architecture, Kafka, Azure cloud services, Snowflake, Databricks, workflow, and enterprise integration.
• Applicable regulatory frameworks and guidance, including BSA/AML requirements, OFAC sanctions requirements, FinCEN regulations and guidance, FATF recommendations, the USA PATRIOT Act, GLBA, privacy obligations, and relevant FFIEC guidance. The architect translates confirmed legal, compliance, and risk requirements into architecture rather than acting as legal counsel.

Minimum Qualifications Required

• Bachelor’s degree and a minimum of 7 years of relevant work experience, or in lieu of a degree, a combined minimum of 11 years of higher education and/or relevant work experience.
• Minimum of 7 years of experience in enterprise, solution, data, security, or application architecture, including at least 3 years supporting AML, KYC, sanctions, financial crime, digital identity, or fraud prevention capabilities.
• Experience integrating financial crime, fraud, identity, analytics, data, alerting, workflow, and case management platforms within a regulated environment.
• Demonstrated experience developing target-state architectures, reference patterns, data and integration architectures, roadmaps, and transition plans.
• Working knowledge of architecture modeling and documentation practices, with the ability to communicate effectively with executive, business, risk, compliance, data, and engineering audiences.
• Experience evaluating vendors and technology options and translating business, regulatory, model risk, operational, data, and financial considerations into clear recommendations.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with AML/KYC, sanctions, transaction monitoring, fraud, identity, behavioral analytics, or case management products such as NICE Actimize, LexisNexis Bridger, BioCatch, Prove, Socure, Bottomline, or comparable platforms.
• Experience with model validation, performance monitoring, explainability, false-positive reduction, graph analytics, entity resolution, or investigator feedback loops.
• Experience within a large financial institution with complex regulatory, legacy, data lineage, cybersecurity, and operational resilience requirements.
• Familiarity with enterprise architecture methods and tools, including capability models, value streams, roadmaps, and architecture repositories.

Expected Deliverables

• Financial Crime and Fraud Prevention capability maps, current-state and target-state architectures, and multiyear roadmaps.
• Reference architectures for identity, screening, monitoring, analytics, alerts, cases, data, and integration.
• High-level designs and architecture decision records for major initiatives.
• Technology assessments, vendor evaluations, and platform recommendations.
• Data lineage, model control, dependency, impact, and transition analyses.
• Executive and governance briefings communicating decisions, investment implications, regulatory alignment, and risk.
• Architecture standards, reusable patterns, and lifecycle governance evidence.

M&T Bank is committed to fair, competitive, and market-informed pay for our employees. The pay range for this position is $139,700.00 - $232,900.00 Annual (USD). The successful candidate’s particular combination of knowledge, skills, and experience will inform their specific compensation.

Location

Buffalo, New York, United States of America