Hybrid Head of Financial Crime

at Zopa Bank

• Job title: Head of Financial Crime
• Job type: Full Time
• Experience level: Lead
• Salary: Not specified
• Degree requirement: Bachelor's Degree
• Location requirements: Hybrid, London, United Kingdom

About the role

• Head of Financial Crime at Zopa leading the first line financial crime function. Shaping safe and commercially sustainable products while managing financial crime issues.

Responsibilities

• Embed first line financial crime expertise into product squads and operations teams, shaping risk-aware MVPs from early ideation.
• Design and build financial crime controls across KYC, screening, customer risk assessment, transaction monitoring, and SAR processes.
• Translate risk appetite into practical decisions, supporting teams with risk/cost/customer trade-offs and prioritisation.
• Promote a proportional, agile approach to controls and documentation, aligned to product maturity and delivery timelines.
• Define early risk indicators and monitoring plans with data teams, including telemetry, thresholds, and post-launch checks.
• Act as the senior financial crime escalation point, making balanced judgements on complex or sensitive cases.
• Build overall financial crime capability and resilience within the first line, avoiding dependency on single individuals.
• Partner with second line teams to align with policy, standards, and regulatory expectations while maintaining clear first line ownership.

Requirements

• Experience owning a broad range of financial crime controls, including TM rule design, onboarding/KYC flows, customer risk assessment models, and SAR processes (fintech or digital banking exposure beneficial).
• Comfortable operating in product-centric, agile environments and working closely with product and engineering teams.
• Proven ability to balance commercial and risk considerations, clearly articulate trade-offs, and support prioritisation in constrained environments.
• Track record of translating regulatory expectations into pragmatic, product-aligned solutions without unnecessary complexity.
• Experience acting as a senior escalation point, applying sound judgement on complex financial crime issues.
• Focus on capability-building: developing team skills, sharing expertise, and supporting resilient ways of working.
• Clear, outcome-focused communication style, connecting financial crime topics to product strategy, customer impact, and business goals.
• Confident using data to inform decisions, including defining thresholds, indicators, monitoring plans, and telemetry.
• Experience working in fast-moving, iterative environments with changing products and requirements.
• Strong collaboration skills, with a history of effective partnership across Product, Engineering, second line functions, and Operations.

Benefits

• Flexible ways of working
• Face-to-face collaboration
• Good work-life balance
• Working from abroad for up to 120 days a year