Financial Crime Manager, Screening

Edinburgh

• Are you curious, excited by experimentation and always looking to innovate?
• Do you want to work in embedded payments where you can keep learning and developing whilst getting hands-on experience?
• Do you want to have the opportunity to work in a high growth environment with a fast paced and collaborative culture where you will work with some fantastic clients and partners?

If so, we would love to connect and collaborate!

We want to hire ambitious, and value-adding talent into Modulr, one of the fastest growing payments businesses in the UK and Europe to drive fraud processing, whilst leading and managing a team to drive efficiency and high service standards.

About us

At Modulr, our vision is a world where all businesses are powered by embedded payments. Modulr enables businesses, from SMEs to Enterprise, initially across the UK and Europe to efficiently pay-in, collect and disburse funds instantly via a range of payment schemes, accounts, and card products.

We have created an industry-leading API platform with comprehensive online tools and access, to meet the demands of daily business payments. We have two routes to market. Our Core Business Payments product allows customers in any sector to connect to us and our expanding network of accounting and payroll platforms, including Sage, Xero, BrightPay and IRIS to automate payments. Our Vertical Solutions targets a growing range of industry verticals which directly connect their IT platforms to our APIs and webhooks. We solve complex payment problems for hundreds of clients in a range of industries, including Travel, Lending, Wage Advance, and Investment & Wealth.

We are deeply integrated into the payment eco-system. In the UK, we are direct participants of Faster Payments and Bacs. Modulr hold settlement accounts at the Bank of England. Our payment network connectivity includes CHAPS, Open Banking, SEPA, SWIFT and account issuance in multiple currencies. We are principal issuing members of Visa and Mastercard schemes across UK and Europe.

Our regulatory permissions and governance structure are the foundations of our business. We are regulated and supervised as an Authorised Electronic Money Institution (AEMI) in the UK by the Financial Conduct Authority and in the Netherlands by De Nederlandsche Bank.

Our founding team has a wealth of experience in the payments industry and growing successful businesses. Modulr is backed by the venture arms of payments giants PayPal and FIS, as well as growth investors Blenheim Chalcot, General Atlantic, Frog Capital and Highland Europe.

Modulr now has over 400 employees spread globally across offices in London, Edinburgh, Amsterdam, and Mumbai.

Modulr values

• Building the extraordinary; going that extra mile.
• Owning the opportunity; be passionate and proud of the time you invest.
• Move at pace; reach goals faster whilst supported on your career journey.
• Achieve it together, working collaboratively and being a Modulite.

The role 

Summary

The Financial Crime Operations function executes processes to mitigate risks to Modulr as they relate to Money Laundering/Terrorist Financing, Fraud, Sanctions, and other Financial Crime risks (such as Anti-bribery & Corruption).

The Financial Crime Manager (Screening) will be responsible for leading and managing a team within Financial Crime Operations that ensures all relevant entities (organisations and individuals) and payments are effectively screened for potential matches to things such as Sanctions, PEPs, Adverse Media and other financial crime risk identifiers.

This will include ensuring that both the screening tools & rules and the associated operational processes are effective yet efficient and meet Modulr’s regulatory and legislative obligations for the jurisdictions we operate in

As well as managing the team and owning the systems and tools to run these processes, the role holder will lead a programme of continuous improvements to deal with ongoing industry changes as well as improve outcomes and efficiency, working with other teams including Product and Technology where relevant. The role holder will also support the improvement of controls and prevention measures over time by utilising the intelligence to highlight emerging trends and potential to improve controls.

As an area of considerable focus in the industry, this is a fantastic opportunity for someone to help shape and deliver a market leading proposition which protects Modulr, our clients and broader payment service users. The ability to deliver through effective operational management, stakeholder engagement and clear reporting, while taking an analytical approach to changing complexities are key factors for success in the role.

Specific duties

Depending on the project, you will need to be comfortable doing the following:

• Maintaining and developing operational processes, tools, and services to support safe, rapid business growth whilst enhancing customer experience; delivered efficiently and with high levels of operational rigour.
• Protecting Modulr and the broader ecosystem by ensuring customer screening activities are delivered effectively and efficiently, in line with our agreed policies, risk appetite and regulatory requirements.
• Delivering a high-quality client experience, ensuring processes and touchpoints are efficient and seamless, and teams are professional and focused on delivering high quality service and outcomes.
• Managing performance across teams through robust training, accreditation, quality assurance and feedback frameworks. Also carrying out systems assurance work where required.
• Developing, monitoring, and maintaining key performance indicators (including internal SLAs) to drive performance, update stakeholders and identify areas for improvement.
• Build knowledge and capacity in the team to provide advisory support to internal and external customers without impacting operational performance.
• Giving advisory support to internal and external stakeholders on compliance queries.
• Drive a culture of continuous improvement, proactively developing team’s policies and procedures to evolve in line with the business’ strategic growth, both product and country expansion.
• Using data to identify opportunities for improvements, particularly in control outcomes, service quality and efficiency. Working with the Product team to establish and drive initiatives to deliver on these.
• Feeding into relevant internal governance forums and reporting.

About you 

The successful Financial Crime Manager, Screening will have a track-record in delivering results in a fast-moving scaling business and hence you must be comfortable with change and uncertainty. More specifically the ideal candidate will have:

• You have experience in operating in a highly regulated environment, with experience in Financial Crime and Customer Screening alongside a supporting qualification
• Recognise the importance of good governance and have experience of delivering strong quality of output in an operational function.
• Demonstrable leadership experience, with a focus on delivering through others
• Attention to detail with experience in developing strong planning and forecasting capabilities to understand capacity requirements
• Good communication and influencing skills, comfortable in being open to challenge but maintaining your position where appropriate
• You’re excited about the prospect of taking ownership of strategies and developing plans to further protect the business, whilst ensuring that they evolve so that the programme continues to be aligned to the business’s rapid growth plans.
• You’re structured and organised, able to handle the competing pressures of immediate tasks alongside longer term projects.
• You’re comfortable working in an early-stage business, where time is critical, and things change frequently and enjoy self-leading and working independently in a fast-paced, constantly changing environment.
• You enjoy sharing your knowledge and sharing your ideas about how we can improve.
• You have a strong focus on automation and efficiency, finding ways to improve outcomes and streamline processes through automation.
• You are focused on delivering a great service to “customers,” whether they are clients of Modulr, regulators, internal stakeholders, or broader industry participants.
• You love rolling up your sleeves and doing whatever is required to achieve the goals of the operations team and wider business.
• You are structured and organised, able to handle the competing pressures of immediate compliance tasks alongside longer-term projects.
• You are analytical and can assess risks and define appropriate controls based on these, communicating the links, effectiveness, and any potential gaps clearly to others.
• You have an inquisitive mind and proactive approach to problem solving and issue resolution.

Skills and experience we are interested in: 

• Experience of working in financial crime with good working knowledge of specific risks and controls within financial services. Specifically in Customer Screening.
• Previous experience managing operational delivery teams including resource planning and managing service delivery through data and SLAs.
• Experience of working with Product and Technology teams to drive systems improvements and automations.
• Experience in training & quality assurance.
• Previous management of multiple stakeholders to aid effective delivery of service.
• Experience reporting and presenting to Senior Management.
• You should have a strong understanding of the regulatory landscape Modulr operate in.
• Assessing the adequacy and effectiveness of measures, controls and procedures put in place to ensure compliance with regulatory obligations.
• Experience maintaining and implementing effective processes, whilst ensuring the correct risk parameters are applied, defining these processes, establish optimal way to achieve goals and embedding tools and procedures to achieve them.
• Relevant qualifications and professional certifications.

What can Modulr offer you 

• You will be part of a cross disciplinary team(s), with co-workers located in Edinburgh, London, Amsterdam, and India. We are friendly and sociable, challenging but rewarding. We want you to push yourself and for us to support you in your future as we scale up and grow.

• Share Options Incentive Scheme.
• Company Bonus - the more successful we are together, the greater the reward.
• Flexible benefits - £1000 to spend on a variety of benefits for you to choose from which suit your lifestyle and needs. Including Private medical insurance, gym membership, health checks etc.
• Perkbox - enjoy freebies and discounts on many other products and services.
• 33 days holiday (including bank holidays) & your birthday off - choose which days you take off to relax and/or spend time with loved ones.
• Learning Opportunities – on joining Modulr you will embark on our 2-day onboarding programme, called ModStart, to be equipped with the Modulr know-how and arm you with the tools you need to be successful from day 1! But we do not want your learning to stop there so we will continue to provide you with the tools and capabilities through our learning channels and platforms.
• Modulr hands-on - join your colleagues for our company wide events throughout the year.
• Great workspace - Modulr thrives on innovation which is best done through in-person collaboration. This approach enables us to work together closely, exchange ideas, and create innovative solutions that drive our success. We ask our team members to be based in the office 4 or more days a week. We have state of the art offices located in Exchange Crescent Edinburgh, Scale Space in London, and WeWork in Amsterdam.
• Bike to work / E-bike scheme.

ModInclusion 

At Modulr, we are working hard to build a more positive diverse and inclusive culture that helps everyone to feel they belong and can truly bring their whole self to work. Not only is it the right thing to do for everyone in the Modulr team, it’s also the right thing to do for our business, the community we operate in and attracting future talent. As part of our approach, we actively welcome applications from candidates with diverse backgrounds.