Head of Transaction Monitoring & Screening

Join our team as the Head of Transaction Monitoring & Screening, where you will lead the operation that ensures the safety of our customers and platform. This first-line leadership role combines control and customer experience, requiring a focus on quality, efficiency, and the use of automation and AI. You will build and lead a high-performing team, continuously improve detection rules, and provide clear management information on service levels and effectiveness.

• Lead the transaction monitoring and screening operation, ensuring clear standards for investigation, disposal, and escalation of work.
• Build and lead a high-performing team, focusing on hiring, coaching, and setting high performance standards.
• Continuously improve detection rules and thresholds, reducing false positives while maintaining effective controls.

• A customer mindset applied to controls — information requests and account restrictions handled clearly, proportionately and with care
• A solid understanding of the boundary between first-line operations and the MLRO/second-line decision to report
• Practical experience introducing automation or AI into operations, with a clear view of where machines help and where human judgement is essential
• A proven track record leading transaction monitoring, sanctions/payment screening or financial-crime operations at scale in payments, fintech or financial services, with the numbers to demonstrate it
• Strong operational discipline: work completed within service levels, thresholds tuned and documented, controls that hold, and a clean audit trail
• The drive to keep the operation current and high-quality — owning problems end to end, finding the root cause, and not stopping at the first obstacle
• A track record of hiring, developing and leading high-performing teams and managing performance fairly and decisively
• Educated to degree level or above, ideally in law, finance, economics or a related discipline
• A relevant professional certification in financial crime or compliance, such as ICA or ACAMS
• Hands-on experience with transaction-monitoring and screening systems and, ideally, AI or automation tools used in financial-crime operations
• Experience of SAR/DAML preparation and working with an MLRO and the relevant authorities
• Experience designing risk-based or straight-through processing and running a threshold-tuning programme
• Familiarity with UK/FCA financial-crime expectations and sanctions regimes
• Experience running a dedicated information-request (RFI) function with clear standards
• Experience managing or scaling operations across multiple locations
• Experience in a high-growth, changing or post-merger environment