An entry-level analyst supporting financial crimes investigation — alert review, KYC verification, basic case work, and the documentation that supports BSA/AML compliance under senior supervision. The starting rung in financial crimes careers.
Most days tend to involve alert review queue work, case investigation support, and documentation work behind SARs and other regulatory reporting. You'll often work in transaction monitoring systems, review alerts triggered by customer or transaction patterns, document investigative steps under senior review, and learn the typology patterns that drive alerts. Volume can be heavy.
The variance between employers is real — a large bank's financial crimes team has specialized junior roles (AML monitoring, sanctions, fraud); a fintech may have a smaller team with broader scope; a regulator-facing consulting firm trains juniors across client engagements; government FIU positions (FinCEN, IRS-CI, FBI) sit inside investigative agencies with different mandates. CAMS exam preparation is common at the junior level.
People who tend to thrive here are comfortable with investigative thinking, patient with the volume of alerts, and capable of writing clear case narratives under supervision. Curiosity about how illicit finance actually works matters. The work tends to offer steady demand and clear career ladders (analyst, investigator, manager, BSA officer), with the trade-off being the alert-driven workload, but for those who care about the integrity of the financial system, the work has clear stakes.
Where this role sits in the broader career landscape — and where it can take you.
Roles like this one sit within a broader occupational category. The numbers below reflect that full landscape — helpful for context, but your specific experience will depend on level, specialty, and where you work.
An entry-level analyst supporting financial crimes investigation — alert review, KYC verification, basic case work, and the documentation that supports BSA/AML compliance under senior supervision. The starting rung in financial crimes careers.
Median pay for a Junior Financial Crimes Analyst is about $94K nationally, with the field ranging roughly from $54K to $159K depending on experience, employer, and metro (BLS).
Core skills for this role include Active Listening, Speaking, Critical Thinking, Social Perceptiveness, and Complex Problem Solving.
Most people in this role hold a high school diploma.
Employment in this field is projected to decline about 0.7% through 2034, with roughly 110,790 people working in it today (BLS).
Closely related roles include Financial Crimes Analyst, Financial Crimes Investigator, and Cyber Special Agent.
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