Career in AFC and Compliance

The AFC and Compliance Services, provided by Sopra Steria Bulgaria, are a vital part of our business portfolio. We are at the intersection of the global shift in financial institutions. Crime is evolving. Law enforcement needs to have fast and reliable partners in the face of banks to exchange information. Banks must ensure they achieve regulatory compliance and operate within the confines of legal and ethical standards.

Through the use of modern technologies and AI tools, the training and development, the global settings, and a highly ethical mindset, our AFC and Compliance team fights fraud and prevents crime by doing:

Anti-Money Laundering (AML)
Know Your Customer (KYC)
Anti-Fraud Management (AFM)

The work of our AFC and Compliance professionals is global and meaningful. We help financial institutions protect their clients, maintain operational excellence, and lead with quality.

One of the primary duties of compliance professionals is to protect the integrity of finance and society.

See our jobs

Why does it matter?

The KYC domain includes identifying PEP (politically exposed person), Blacklisted, and Sanctioned individuals, making a classical KYC data comparison to arrive at a decision for a positive or false positive case. This could involve sanctioned individuals or entities, various national blacklists/credit bureau lists, etc. This process is especially important to ensure there are no disreputable, politically involved parties and no criminals are trying to open a bank account. As part of the continued process, the KYC performs individual and corporate onboarding and periodic KYC review, including adverse media, UBO (Ultimate beneficial owner) identification, onboarding/incorporation documentation, reputational risk, etc.

While the KYC process is imperative to stop illicit entry attempts at the bank, the AML compliance prevents the influx of illegitimate funds into the legitimate financial system. Here, our team processes post or real-time transaction monitoring alerts or real-time embargoed transactions. The procedure involved analysis, decision-making, and further processing, including the submission of a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR). Within this domain, our team deals with sanctions hits in transaction counterparties, authority requests: investigation of affected customers, and other internal escalation (referral) cases, including terrorism financing, account takeover, etc.

The Anti-fraud management is responsible for alert analysis for potential fraudulent activities. This includes transactions recall alerts ID theft / Account takeover (ATO) alerts based on holistic customer profiles, device logins, and AFC history.

Our Impact in Action

Our work in compliance reveals how financial systems can be misused for harm on a global scale. From building a digital warfare, spreading corruption, political messages, and polarizing societies to acting as a financial front for a network tied to human trafficking and child exploitation, we track payments and report our findings to the respective operations.

Alongside these, we encounter attempted terrorist financing, large-scale fraud, and schemes that devastate lives. Identifying and stopping such activity helps prevent the spread of corruption, protects vulnerable people, and safeguards the stability of societies.

Our Team

Team culture built on shared values

Work-life balance that works — no mandatory office time, just trust and flexibility

Acknowledgment – because being seen and heard fuels the best results.

Inclusion in improving processes, not just following them.

Open doors leadership – alongside you, not above you.

Progress – from reskilling to new roles, higher responsibility, and mentoring.

Well-being is essential, never as a privilege.

Empathy to understand not just the work, but the person behind it.

Q&A with the team

What makes you successful at what you do?

Ivan Stefanov: To be successful at our job, an individual approach, patience, resilience, dedication, and setting a personal example are what it takes.

Deyvid Georgiev: The most important thing to be good at your job, which applies to most jobs nowadays, is flexibility, and transaction monitoring is no exception. But you also need to have an eye for detail and critical thinking in order to distinguish between legitimate activities and potentially illegal ones.

Tsvetomira Petkova: Curiosity and adaptability are crucial in this dynamic field, along with effective communication, leadership abilities, and a commitment to continuous learning to stay ahead of emerging challenges.

What skills or knowledge from your background help you most in this role?

Theodor Ninov: Industry-wide and market knowledge help me understand better where our client is positioned and what details they would mostly appreciate in our delivery to them.

What are your top 3 tips for applicants?

Svetla Pashova: 1. To have a genuine interest in the field of AFC

2. To never stop learning

3. Keep developing your critical thinking

What do you find interesting in your job?

Presiyana Karamuzova: I have always been passionate about investigations, and this is the part that makes my job so interesting. When I do my daily job, I see different patterns and try to find out what is going on, only following transactions. This helps me develop my critical thinking and analytical skills, but the thing that motivates me the most is the fact that I contribute to the prevention of money laundering and fraud spreading globally.

FAQs

Yes, we offer a comprehensive initial project onboarding. It includes detailed explanations of the processes and the way we work. It also involves training on the infrastructure and the tools used.

Everyone is allowed to work from home. There are, however, certain events and visits for which we require and would like to see our employees in the office

Yes, there are specific AFC and Compliance certificates our officers are asked to complete according to their work availability.
Regarding the training opportunities, we offer a variety of soft skills and work-related qualifications that everyone can enrol in.
Additionally, we offer online German language courses to enhance the level of German language skills in our employees

German language is required to perform documentation orientation and also in cases of written communication with the bank clients. Although we accept candidates with a completed level of B2 and above, we also support the team and use tools to write and sound professional in German.

You can take a look at the selection of tools we use on our website: click here. Apart from them, we use AI tools and LLMs to give us summaries, write, identify patterns, conduct risk assessment, enforce policy, and train ourselves to become even more effective in our jobs.