elvira fernandes - bio

Elvira Fernandes is Senior Advisor, Higher Risk Accounts Program at The AML Shop.  Elvira is an accomplished financial services risk & compliance management professional with over thirty years of experience at leading Fintech Payment Service Providers, Canadian Money Service Businesses, U.S. Money Transmitters and Canadian Financial Institutions.  Elvira operates on the principle that intertwining a business's revenue strategy with its risk and compliance controls is key to reaching healthy business goals.

Prior to joining The AML Shop, Elvira’s comprehensive AML industry experience included Regulatory Compliance work in Canada and the US. She led results-oriented teams of senior AML compliance professionals who were accountable for performing operational tasks in accordance with established policies and procedures.  She is an expert in assembling and managing all-star teams responsible for new customer account due diligence, vetting and assessment, digital onboarding, ongoing monitoring of customer accounts, data synchronization, transaction monitoring programs, merchant risk mitigation, fraud detection and transaction laundering and screening alerts and adjudication. Her in-depth experience in organizing tactical and strategic compliance teams is an invaluable asset to The AML Shop’s Managed Services and Outsourced Department and the new Managed Enhanced Due Diligence (MEDD) for Higher Risk Entities Program; an ongoing managed service that helps financial institutions vet and monitor their higher-risk entities in efforts to mitigate the risks they can pose.

The core of Elvira’s role at The AML Shop is her leadership of the Higher Risk Entity Review team.  As a compliance and regulatory powerhouse, with a comprehensive background in regulatory compliance and jurisdictional policy alignment, Elvira helps The AML Shop’s outsourced and managed services clients remain up to date with relevant ML/TF threats and risks. Her philosophy is to lead her Higher Risk Accounts based on leading practices that leverage advanced intelligence sources and tools catered to higher risk entities and incorporate these findings into final program documentation and procedures. 

Elvira has elite experience dealing with key governmental regulatory authorities and associated regulations that impact our clients including: FCAC and its Code of Conduct for the Payment Card industry in Canada; the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada and the PIPEDA; the Bank of Canada for the RPAA; the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) and the PCLMTFA; several U.S. State departments of oversight of financial institutions; and FinCEN for the BSA and AML/ATF.    

Elvira is CAMS certified.