Head Of AML Advisory

Mercury is building a complete finance stack for startups. We work hard to create the easiest and safest banking* experience possible to simplify entrepreneurs' and business owners’ financial lives. The challenge is to do so while ensuring we protect Mercury, customers and the broader financial ecosystem from bad actors and harmful, illegal or unauthorized activities. 

Mercury*, while not a bank itself, is an important part of the U.S. financial ecosystem. Mercury provides banking services to ambitious entrepreneurs, and in so doing, must play a part in also working to root out bad actors and prevent them from accessing or abusing the U.S. financial system. 

The BSA/AML & Sanctions compliance team serves as the oversight function for the overall AML & Sanctions program. As the Head of AML Advisory, you will drive and own day-to-day advisory and support of Mercury’s BSA/AML program spanning Know Your Customer (KYC), Transaction Monitoring, emerging risk, and customer supportability. This leadership role will report to Mercury’s BSA Officer and will require significant cross-functional engagement with our risk strategy and operations functions, product managers, engineers, and external financial partners. 

*Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group, Column N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust, Members FDIC.

As part of the journey, we would expect you to:

• Help to develop Mercury’s BSA/AML program, including supporting policy, control, and training development 
• Work closely with the BSA/AML and Sanctions Compliance Officer, existing operational AML/BSA and KYC teams, and Product Compliance managers on aligning policies with implementation and addressing escalation
• Partner across Compliance, Risk, Legal, and Product, among other teams, to help guide Mercury’s growth in a highly-regulated space
• Support the creation of governance structures for the overall program
• Serve as a champion and conduit for BSA/AML and KYC priorities across the company, and provide advisory to business partners as needed 
• Help set and drive vision for how compliance can not only help protect Mercury, but serve as a differentiator and competitive advantage 
• Support the strategic goals of the Compliance function while still operating in the weeds on key compliance initiatives 
• Maintain an inventory of BSA/AML requirements; execute gap assessments and change management assessments as required, to ensure compliance with expectations from regulators, partner institutions, and Mercury’s policies 
• Support the execution of the AML/BSA and KYC Risk Assessments

There are lots of paths that could lead you to be successful in a role like this; we think the strongest candidates will have some of this experience:

• Have a minimum of 7+ years experience building and designing BSA/AML governance and policy programs at fintechs, traditional financial institutions, or ideally both 
• Possess deep knowledge of BSA/AML and other applicable regulatory frameworks (e.g., FFIEC, SAR, CTF, FATF, etc.) 
• Have a strategic and entrepreneurial mindset with an ability to identify emerging compliance trends and risks, ensuring we stay ahead of the curve
• Care deeply about the founders and entrepreneurs that we serve, while also having a strong commitment to BSA/AML compliance
• Be an excellent communicator, with the ability to break down complex requirements into easy-to-understand and practical systems
• Be comfortable operating in a highly-regulated, rapidly evolving, and sometimes ambiguous environment
• Love collaborating with talented professionals across many disciplines within Mercury, from Product, Design, Engineering, Marketing, and more

The total rewards package at Mercury includes base salary, equity (stock options), and benefits.

Our salary and equity ranges are highly competitive within the SaaS and fintech industry and are updated regularly using the most reliable compensation survey data for our industry. New hire offers are made based on a candidate’s experience, expertise, geographic location, and internal pay equity relative to peers.

Our target new hire base salary ranges for this role are the following:

• US employees in New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle, or the San Francisco Bay Area: $224,700 - $264,300
• US employees outside of the New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle or the San Francisco Bay Area: $202,200 - $237,900

We use Covey as part of our hiring and / or promotional process for jobs in NYC and certain features may qualify it as an AEDT. As part of the evaluation process we provide Covey with job requirements and candidate submitted applications. We began using Covey Scout for Inbound on January 22, 2024. Please see the independent bias audit report covering our use of Covey here.

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