Description

A focused course, tailored for you

The AML Investigator Supervisor SAR Quality Playbook

Name: The AML Investigator Supervisor SAR Quality Playbook
Price: 199 USD
Availability: InStock

How to run a brokerage AML investigations desk where every SAR narrative survives FinCEN, FINRA, and internal QC without rework.

Your analysts close alerts. You rewrite the SARs. That is not supervision, that is a bottleneck wearing a title.

$199 one-time

Tailored to your situation. Access within 24 hours. 30-day money-back.

Includes a hand-built implementation playbook delivered alongside course access, generated for your specific situation.

Why this course

An AML Investigator Supervisor at a brokerage sits at a hard intersection. The transaction-monitoring system fires alerts that mix true structuring, microcap manipulation, ACAT-driven layering, and a long tail of false positives from normal advisor-managed activity. Junior investigators triage them, write the case file, and draft the SAR narrative. QC kicks back the SARs that are weak on subject-activity nexus, weak on the 30-day continuing-activity rationale, or that read like the analyst checked boxes instead of telling a story a federal agent can act on. The supervisor rewrites them, signs them off, and the cycle resets the next quarter. Nothing in the analyst's training programme actually teaches narrative spine. The published FinCEN and FINRA material is principle-level, not desk-level. What is missing is a written standard for what a brokerage SAR has to look like for each typology the desk actually sees, and a coaching cadence that gets a junior analyst to that standard inside ninety days rather than eighteen months. This course is that standard plus the coaching cadence, written for a brokerage AML desk, not for a retail bank or a money services business.

What you walk away with

Every SAR your desk files has a documented narrative spine that survives QC on first pass.
Junior investigators reach independent-SAR-author status inside ninety days, not eighteen months.
Your alert disposition queue clears inside the regulatory window without weekend rework.
You walk into a FINRA exam or internal audit with a written investigations standard, not a verbal one.
You can explain, in two slides, why your SAR quality numbers are what they are and what you are doing to move them.

The 12 modules

Module 1. The brokerage SAR narrative spine

What a SAR narrative actually has to do, written for brokerage typologies. The five elements every narrative must carry: subject identity and account context, activity description in plain chronological order, the typology pattern named explicitly, the rationale for the filing window, and the disposition decision. Worked example for a structured-deposit pattern across linked retail brokerage accounts, with a side-by-side of a weak narrative and a strong one.

Module 2. Triaging the transaction-monitoring queue

How to read your alert queue as a supervisor and decide which alerts get full investigation, which get expedited dispositions, and which need typology-specific escalation. Covers tuning conversations with the model-validation team, how to ask for parameter changes without breaking the audit trail, and how to document why an alert was closed without a SAR so internal audit cannot challenge the decision six months later.

Module 3. Structuring across linked brokerage accounts

The most common brokerage typology and the one analysts get wrong most often. How to identify the linkage signal between accounts, how to write the narrative when the structuring happens across an advisor-managed account and a self-directed one, and how to handle the 30-day continuing-activity decision when the pattern is intermittent. Templates for the SAR narrative and the internal investigation memo.

Module 4. Microcap manipulation and pump-and-dump patterns

How to recognise the staged price-and-volume pattern, how to tie the deposit pattern to the trading pattern in a narrative a federal agent can read once, and how to coordinate with the trade-surveillance team without losing the chain of custody on the investigation file. Includes the disclosure language for SAR Part V when the subject is a registered representative.

Module 5. Third-party wire layering through advisor-managed accounts

The typology where money moves in through an advisor-managed account, sits briefly, and exits to an unrelated third party. How to investigate without disrupting the advisor relationship prematurely, how to coordinate with the FA's branch supervisor, and how to write the narrative when the activity is consistent with the stated investment objective on the surface but anomalous in pattern.

Module 6. ACAT-driven and account-opening typologies

Patterns that surface in the first ninety days of a new brokerage relationship. Funded-and-flat accounts, ACAT-in-and-out within thirty days, and the CIP-CDD weak-link patterns. How to escalate to the new-accounts team without triggering a defensive response, and how to write the SAR when the activity itself is small but the pattern across a cluster of accounts is significant.

Module 7. The 30 / 60 / 90-day continuing-activity decision

When to file a continuing-activity SAR, when to close the case, and how to document the decision either way. Walks through the FinCEN guidance, the FINRA examination angles, and the internal-audit angle, with a decision tree the desk can paste into the case management system. Handles the awkward case where activity stops the moment the SAR is filed.

Module 8. QC, the second-look process, and the metrics that matter

How to design a QC process that catches narrative weakness without burning supervisor hours. The three metrics a supervisor should track: first-pass SAR acceptance rate, time-to-disposition, and analyst-author independence rate. How to present these to the BSA Officer and the Compliance Committee without inviting the wrong intervention.

Module 9. Coaching a junior investigator to author-grade in ninety days

The structured coaching cadence that moves a new investigator from supervised drafting to independent authorship. Week-by-week milestones, the case-mix they need to see, the feedback template that produces improvement rather than defensiveness, and how to know when an investigator is ready to sign their own SARs.

Module 10. FINRA 3310 program adherence from the desk perspective

How the investigations desk shows up in a FINRA 3310 exam. What the examiners read first, what they ask for second, and what they ask the supervisor in interview. The documentation pack a desk should keep current: written supervisory procedures for investigations, the SAR quality standard, the QC log, the training log, and the disposition aging report.

Module 11. Exam, audit, and law-enforcement liaison hygiene

How to handle the inbound subpoena, the FinCEN 314(a) request, the FinCEN 314(b) information-sharing decision, and the federal agent who calls because they read one of your SARs and want context. The internal escalation path, the legal-and-compliance handoff, and how to keep the desk's name off the cover of a problem that is not its problem.

Module 12. Running the desk as a supervisor, not a bottleneck

The supervisor's own operating cadence. The weekly review meeting that surfaces problems early, the monthly metric review with the BSA Officer, the quarterly typology refresh that keeps the team current on what the industry is seeing, and the annual self-assessment that becomes the first slide in the next exam binder. The supervisor's job is to make the desk work without them being in every decision; this module is how.

How this addresses your situation

Specific modules that map to what you said you are dealing with.

Module 1 fixes the SAR that came back from QC last week.

Modules 3 through 6 cover the four typologies your desk sees most.

Module 7 settles the 30-day continuing-activity argument the team keeps having.

Module 9 is the coaching cadence that gets your two newest investigators to independent-author status by end of quarter.

What you get with this course

Twelve written modules with worked SAR narrative examples for each brokerage typology.
SAR narrative templates for structuring, microcap manipulation, third-party wire layering, ACAT patterns, and account-opening typologies.
A QC checklist tuned to brokerage SARs, not retail-bank SARs.
A ninety-day coaching plan for new investigators with weekly milestones and a feedback template.
A FINRA 3310 desk-readiness pack: written supervisory procedures, SAR quality standard, QC log template, training log template, aging report template.
A hand-built implementation playbook for your specific alert volume, team size, product mix, and TMS, delivered alongside the course.

What you will have in hand by Day 1, Week 1, Month 1

Within 24 hours your account in the learning environment is provisioned.

The hand-built implementation playbook tuned to your desk is delivered alongside course access.

Twelve modules are available at provisioning; pace is self-directed.

Templates and worked examples download as editable files for direct use on live cases.

Before and after

Before

The supervisor rewrites SAR narratives that come back from QC. Junior investigators take eighteen months to reach independent authorship. The desk's exam binder is verbal knowledge sitting in the supervisor's head.

After

The desk has a written SAR quality standard. QC accepts narratives on first pass. New investigators reach author-grade in ninety days. The exam binder is current, written, and walks an examiner through what good looks like.

What happens if you do not address this

The next FINRA 3310 exam or internal audit reads the same SAR narrative weakness from three years ago and writes it up as a repeat finding. Repeat findings are how investigations-desk supervisors lose budget, headcount, and standing with the BSA Officer.

Who it is for

AML Investigator Supervisor at a US broker-dealer, leading a team of four to twelve investigators, responsible for SAR quality, alert disposition timelines, FINRA 3310 program adherence, and internal-audit and FinCEN exam readiness for the investigations function.

Who this is NOT for. Not for retail-bank BSA officers, not for MSB compliance leads, not for AML model-validation specialists. The typologies, the narrative conventions, and the supervisory cadence are written for brokerage investigations specifically.

How it arrives

Text-based course in the Art of Service learning environment, plus downloadable templates and worked examples for every module, plus the hand-built implementation playbook delivered alongside course access.

Time investment. Roughly six to eight hours of focused reading across the twelve modules, plus working time for whichever templates you put into immediate use on your desk.

Why $199 is the right number

ACAMS-style certification programmes teach principles and pass an exam. They do not give a supervisor the desk-level narrative standard or the coaching cadence. Internal training built around generic AML material teaches typologies for banks, not brokerages. A consulting engagement to rebuild the SAR quality standard runs into mid-five-figures and arrives in a deck. This course is the standard, the templates, and the playbook, written for a brokerage investigations desk, at 199 USD.

FAQ

Is this an ACAMS replacement?

No. ACAMS-style certifications cover principles and exam-readiness. This course covers desk operations: SAR narrative quality, supervisory cadence, coaching, and exam-binder readiness for a brokerage AML investigations function.

How is this different from generic AML training?

The typologies, the templates, the QC checklist, and the coaching cadence are written for a US broker-dealer investigations desk. Retail-bank and MSB material does not transfer cleanly.

Who fulfils the implementation playbook?

Gerard Blokdyk builds it directly for your desk after purchase, tuned to your alert volume, team size, product mix, and transaction-monitoring system.

Can I use this with my existing case-management and TMS tooling?

Yes. The templates are tool-neutral text that paste into Actimize, Mantas, Verafin, or any in-house workflow.

What if it does not fit?

Thirty-day money-back. Email and the order is refunded.

30-day money-back guarantee. If after a week of working through the materials this is not what you needed, reply to the receipt email and a full refund is processed. No questions, no forms.

Within 24 hours your account in the learning environment is provisioned and the tailored implementation playbook is delivered alongside it.