Compliance Senior Manager

Wise is a global technology company, building the best way to move and manage the world’s money.

Min fees. Max ease. Full speed.

Whether people and businesses are sending money to another country, spending abroad, or making and receiving international payments, Wise is on a mission to make their lives easier and save them money.

As part of our team, you will be helping us create an entirely new network for the world's money.

For everyone, everywhere.

More about our mission and what we offer.

We’re looking for a Senior Compliance Manager focusing on Financial Crime compliance and oversight for Australia and New Zealand. Based in Sydney, you will work with a growing team of multidisciplinary specialists (Product, Banking, Operations based in our offices in APAC, Estonia and HQ in London) to help deliver world class products and services in Australia and New Zealand. You’ll help manage and strengthen the team’s relationships with regulators such as AUSTRAC and DIA, by having a clear overview of our regulatory requirements and how we meet them through our products, processes and controls.

You will be working closely with teams across Wise (including first line Fincrime Operations, Product, and Banking teams) to provide advice on new regulations and emerging risks, ensure new products and services are launched in compliance with regulatory requirements, and oversee the firm’s financial crime controls (KYC, AML, Sanctions, Fraud). Externally, you are also responsible for defending Wise’s compliance program to regulators, law enforcement, and partner banks. 

Wise has already pioneered new ways for people to transfer money across borders and currencies. Our customers can also manage their hard-earned money with the world’s first platform to offer true multi-currency banking. Your mission is to play a key role in supporting a financial crime program that is driven by Wise’s mission for money without borders, transparency, and protecting customers. We are looking for a seasoned professional who can bring both in-depth financial crime compliance expertise and commercial foresight to our team. This role is for a natural problem-solver who is passionate about building efficient and effective risk management programs and communicating those solutions clearly to a wide range of stakeholders.

Here’s how you’ll be contributing to Core Compliance

• Manage and oversight compliance with Australia and New Zealand Financial Crime obligations, including monitoring and overseeing the mapping of controls and assurance activities and providing guidance and challenge to 1LoD teams on the development of fincrime controls and new products or features to ensure they are effective and are compliant with local laws and regulations. 
• Support FinCrime Governance, advising the Management and Supervisory Boards on financial crime risks, control effectiveness, and resource adequacy through clear, comprehensive reporting.
• Oversee and enhance the local AML/CTF framework, including maintaining all entity-specific policies or local addendum to group policies, the Financial Crime Risk Assessment (FCRA), and internal controls.
• Conduct regulatory analysis and horizon scanning for Australia and New Zealand, assess the impact of changes, advise product teams and drive the implementation of required updates.
• Build and maintain relationships with 1LOD FCC Operations colleagues to ensure oversight of key processes, SLA’s, QA, emerging risks, resource challenges, program changes, incidents and mitigation plans
• Respond to financial crime escalations and requests submitted from 1LOD, Product and Partnership teams
• Work closely with internal stakeholders to collaborate and contribute to quarterly and annual objectives
• Engage with our regulators, bank partners and law enforcement to demonstrate, and defend, Wise’s FCC Program
• Assist with various compliance related projects and tasks as required. 

This role will give you the opportunity to:

• Develop an in-depth knowledge of Wise’s business and get to know teams across Wise as you work with them to understand the product and regulatory framework. 
• Help keep compliance right at the heart of our product developments by managing our compliance obligations in Australia and New Zealand, managing regulatory change, driving second line monitoring and oversight, and providing assurance to the Senior Leadership team and local entity Boards. 
• Support new initiatives by ensuring new initiatives are compliantly launched.
• Take on and own new projects that arise in any area of the compliance programme on a project basis. Take a problem-solving approach, whether designing a new process to be implemented or driving an effort for multiple teams to work together to remediate control gaps or process enhancements. 
• Global cross team collaboration projects with focus on delivering impact for our fastest growing APAC markets - Singapore, Japan, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, India and more.

Our ideal candidate will have over 8 years experience in managing compliance with financial regulation in Hong Kong, great communication and organisational skills, tons of motivation and positivity. More specifically, we’re looking for someone who can demonstrate they have these attributes:

• Theory. You are an expert in fincrime compliance having a background in financial services and a thorough knowledge of the AML/CTF regulations in Australia (and ideally New Zealand)..
• Practice. You have worked in a compliance  advisory role and have dealt with regulators, preferably both AUSTRAC and DIA (and/or NZ Police), on a regular basis. You have demonstrable experience designing and challenging processes, ideally across multiple products. You have experience in dealing with regulatory inspection/audits, FIU reporting, suspicious transaction monitoring etc. You understand how to build and maintain a good working relationship with regulators, policymakers etc.
• Passion. You get a kick out of improving current practices and processes and have the drive to apply different compliance strategies to develop multiple compliance frameworks. You have thought deeply about the Wise mission and how it intersects with compliance.
• Get the job done. You are a problem-solver. You have a sense of urgency and an ability to work well under pressure, prioritising, taking responsibility and working to tight deadlines.
• Communication. You’re a strong relationship builder across all levels of the business and externally. You lead by example and can demonstrate the Wise values in all your actions.
• Development. You’ve considered the challenges and development opportunities of working at a fast growing scale-up and are looking to get into FinTech or payments compliance.
• Project management and communication. You have the ability to write and communicate clearly about our products, processes and controls as well as how they can be improved. You’re able to analyse different viewpoints across stakeholders and tailor your communication to get the message across.
• Autonomous. You’re a proactive problem solver and able to work independently to contribute to the team’s overall objectives. You’re adaptable to evolving priorities and have a strong ability to project manage such changes effectively.
• Curious. You have an insatiable curiosity about Asia/Hong Kong products, processes and puts our customers interests at the forefront. You’re excited to make an impact at Wise and enjoy working with cross functional teams to fuel the revolution.

For everyone, everywhere. We're people building money without borders  — without judgement or prejudice, too. We believe teams are strongest when they are diverse, equitable and inclusive.

We're proud to have a truly international team, and we celebrate our differences.

Inclusive teams help us live our values and make sure every Wiser feels respected, empowered to contribute towards our mission and able to progress in their careers.

If you want to find out more about what it's like to work at Wise visit Wise.Jobs.

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