Compliance Manager & Deputy MLRO (UK)

About Airwallex
Airwallex is the only unified payments and financial platform for global businesses. Powered by our unique combination of proprietary infrastructure and software, we empower over 200,000 businesses worldwide - including Brex, Rippling, Navan, Qantas, SHEIN and many more - with fully integrated solutions to manage everything from business accounts, payments, spend management and treasury, to embedded finance at a global scale.
Proudly founded in Melbourne, we have a team of over 2,000 of the brightest and most innovative people in tech across 26 offices around the globe. Valued at US$8 billion and backed by world-leading investors including T. Rowe Price, Visa, Mastercard, Robinhood Ventures, Sequoia, Salesforce Ventures, DST Global, and Lone Pine Capital, Airwallex is leading the charge in building the global payments and financial platform of the future. If you're ready to do the most ambitious work of your career, join us.
Attributes We Value
We hire successful builders with founder-like energy who want real impact, accelerated learning, and true ownership. You bring strong role-related expertise and sharp thinking, and you're motivated by our mission and operating principles. You move fast with good judgment, dig deep with curiosity, and make decisions from first principles, balancing speed and rigor.
You're humble and collaborative; turn zero-to-one ideas into real products, and you "get stuff done" end-to-end. You use AI to work smarter and solve problems faster. Here, you'll tackle complex, high-visibility problems with exceptional teammates and grow your career as we build the future of global banking. If that sounds like you, let's build what's next.
About the Team
The Legal, Risk & Compliance (LRC) team at Airwallex is a collaborative group of legal minds and risk management experts. We are passionate about safeguarding Airwallex's operations, fostering a culture of compliance and ethical conduct, and ensuring we navigate the global financial landscape with integrity. We provide expert guidance and support to all areas of the business, proactively identifying, mitigating, and managing legal and financial risks.
The Role
As the Compliance Manager & UK Deputy MLRO, you will be a senior member of the EMEA Financial Crime Compliance (FCC) team and a key second-line advisor for Airwallex's UK business.
You will help design and uplift our AML/CTF and broader financial crime compliance program in line with UK Money Laundering Regulations, FCA guidance, and Airwallex's global standards. Your focus will be on policies, procedures, Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR), and the continuous improvement of FCC processes. You will work cross-functionally with Product, Commercial, Operations, Data, and Legal colleagues to ensure our controls effectively prevent, detect, and report financial crime while enabling sustainable growth.
Key Responsibilities

• Program Development: Develop and maintain UK FCC policies, standards, and detailed procedures (e.g., KYC/CDD, EDD, name-screening, transaction monitoring) in line with the UK MLRs, JMLSG guidance, and group-wide standards.
• BAU Oversight: Provide oversight of financial crime investigations arising from transaction monitoring alerts, name-screening hits, and internal referrals, ensuring robust documentation and appropriate escalation.
• SAR Management: Review and approve Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) submissions to the National Crime Agency (NCA), while leading the uplift of SAR/workflow design and quality assurance.
• Strategic Advisory: Lead cross-division work on high-risk customers and complex commercial deals, providing risk-based FCC advice to help structure controls that satisfy FCA and banking-partner expectations.
• Control Enhancement: Partner with Product and Data teams to enhance UK transaction-monitoring and name-screening controls (rule design, typology coverage) and remediate issues identified through internal or external audits.
• Governance & Reporting: Contribute to UK FCC governance by preparing high-quality Management Information (MI) for local leadership, risk committees, and the Board, including Key Risk Indicators (KRIs) and SAR metrics.

Who You Are
Minimum Qualifications:
We're looking for people who meet the minimum requirements for this role. The preferred qualifications are great to have, but are not mandatory:

• Education: Bachelor's Degree in Law, Finance, Business, or a related field.
• Experience: 5+ years of financial crime compliance experience in a financial institution, payment services, or fintech environment, with direct exposure to AML/CTF program execution.
• Regulatory Exposure: Demonstrated auditing/assurance background and prior experience interacting with regulators.
• UK Expertise: In-depth familiarity with UK AML/CTF laws (POCA, MLRs) and regulatory guidance, particularly as they apply to digital payments, cross-border flows and e-commerce use-cases..
• Operational Skills: Hands-on experience with SAR investigations and filing, managing transaction-monitoring and name-screening escalations end-to-end.
• Stakeholder Management: Ability to credibly engage and challenge senior internal stakeholders and external partners (e.g., banks, schemes, regulators).

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience in payments, fintech, or e-commerce, supporting cross-border products, card issuing/acquiring or or embedded finance use cases.
• Recognised professional certification in compliance or financial crime (e.g., CAMS, ICA Diploma).
• Experience operating within a global or regional FCC function, partnering across multiple jurisdictions and time zones.
• Prior exposure to sanctions, high-risk industry frameworks, and applying these to product design and onboarding.

Applicant Safety Policy: Fraud and Third-Party Recruiters
To protect you from recruitment scams, please be aware that Airwallex will not ask for bank details, sensitive ID numbers (i.e. passport), or any form of payment during the application or interview process. All official communication will come from an @airwallex.com email address. Please apply only through careers.airwallex.com or our official LinkedIn page.
Airwallex does not accept unsolicited resumes from search firms/recruiters. Airwallex will not pay any fees to search firms/recruiters if a candidate is submitted by a search firm/recruiter unless an agreement has been entered into with respect to specific open position(s). Search firms/recruiters submitting resumes to Airwallex on an unsolicited basis shall be deemed to accept this condition, regardless of any other provision to the contrary.
Equal opportunity
Airwallex is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We value diversity and anyone seeking employment at Airwallex is considered based on merit, qualifications, competence and talent. We don't regard color, religion, race, national origin, sexual orientation, ancestry, citizenship, sex, marital or family status, disability, gender, or any other legally protected status when making our hiring decisions. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.