Who are we?

At Verto, we’re passionate about helping businesses in Africa reach the world. What first started life as a FX solution for trading exotic currencies has now become a market-leading platform, changing the way thousands of businesses transfer money in and out of Emerging markets .

We believe that where you do business shouldn’t determine how successful you are, or your ability to scale. Millions of companies a day have to juggle long settlement periods, high transaction fees and issues accessing liquidity in order to trade with African businesses. We’re on a mission to change this by creating equal access to easy payment and liquidity solutions that are already a given in developed markets.

We’re not alone in realising the opportunity and need to solve for emerging markets. We’re backed by world-class investors including Y-Combinator, Quona and MEVP, power payments for some of the most disruptive start-ups in the world and have a list of accolades from leading publications including being voted ‘Fintech Start Up of the Year’ at Fintech Awards London 2022. Each year we process billions of dollars of payments and provide companies with solutions which help them to save money, automate processes and grow, but we’re only just getting started.

We’re looking for an experienced sales hire to help us build high value, enterprise partnerships that enable us to build an ecosystem of users across emerging markets.

The role

As Head of compliance and MLRO at Verto , you’ll report directly to our CEO but consistently work collaboratively with our Product, Marketing and Sales team to ensure that Verto has a targeted approach to customer acquisition, building strategic partnerships and ensuring commercial bias in decision making.

Success in this role requires someone comfortable working in a fast-paced environment to build strategy and execution plans as well as developing strong relationships both internally and with key partners. This role requires a forward-thinker who is able to balance being ruthlessly customer-focused with internal resources and external requirements.

What you’ll be doing

Managing regulatory and compliance-related expansion activities into new launch markets for Verto

• Developing and updating the financial crime framework and conducting periodic reviews of its effectiveness including ensuring that the entire business is trained on its regulatory obligations around Anti Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing on an annual basis and ensuring the development and implementation of effective AML/CFT policies processes and controls are in line with local and international regulation.
• Manage and maintain the Compliance Program to support and protect the business from regulatory risk, including overseeing the effective completion of the annual Compliance Monitoring Plan
• Closely manage and maintain a positive and open relationship with Verto’s regulators and banking partners, ensuring that any emerging trends/typologies are escalated to the Executives/ Board as appropriate.
• To keep abreast with key regulatory requirements and ensure Verto is compliant at all times, conducting gap analysis against any new requirements or FCA guidance

Chair the Compliance and Financial Crime Committee

• Advise and liaise with the relevant departments to ensure all processes with significant impact on our regulatory permissions are operating effectively
• Support the business’s expansion objectives, including overseeing the business's regulatory expansion and licensing efforts.
• Lead the review and sign-off of all High Risk Customers
• Periodic review of all compliance-related tools/software to ensure that these are fit for purpose and conduct any RFP with future vendors appropriately.
• Instruct and delegate effectively to the Deputy MLRO and Compliance Lead to address issues raised in internal audit reports, regulatory notices or due diligence reviews, ensuring management responses and remedial actions are completed as a priority.
• Keep the Board abreast of emerging risks and required action
• Ensure that all relevant regulatory reporting is completed in a timely manner.
• Produce the annual MLRO report
• Support the growth, sales and marketing teams by assessing new verticals and developing a framework for accepting them
• Ensure all activities and transactions identified as suspicious are reported to the relevant financial intelligence unit in a timely manner
• To have oversight of the compliance team, (Transaction Monitoring, Financial Crime, Onboarding and Regulatory Expansion) and ensure high performance in supporting the business requirements, and meeting agreed SLAs.

Requirements

• Experience of working as a Head of Compliance / MLRO within a Payments Industry/Electronic Money Institution, holding the SMLF16/17 position. A very ambitious DMLRO ready to make the best step up will be considered as well
• Very strong demonstrable knowledge of the Regulatory and Legal framework governing Payment Services firms including MLRs PSRs and EMRs
• Credible stakeholder engagement skills to align with our organisational values and behaviours
• Strong leadership skills
• Exposure to fintech/start-ups/ and leading a high-performing team
• Good industry network
• Emerging markets experience desirable

What we offer 

• 33 days holiday each year (Including Bank Holidays)
• Up to 5% Employer contribution towards Pension
• Hybrid working policy
• Regular company social events
• Perkbox Subscription – major discounts
• Life insurance – 5x annual salary
• Deliveroo office lunches
• Vitality healthcare for you and family
• Dental care
• Optical care