Compliance Lead

Paystack’s mission is to accelerate digital payments on the continent of Africa. Over 200K of some of the most renowned businesses in Nigeria, as well as a growing number of merchants in South Africa, Ghana, and Kenya use Paystack’s modern payments gateway. They include the likes of MTN, Burger King, UPS, AXA Mansard Insurance, FilmHouse Cinemas, Smile Communications, Air Peace Airlines, Crocs, Under Armour, Richemont Lifestyle Group (RLG), and many others.

In just over 8 years, our growing team has introduced a steady cadence of innovation within the online payments landscape, such as automated recurring payments, the ability for customers to pay directly from their bank accounts, automated chargebacks, and much more. We’ve been acquired by Stripe and are doubling down on the mission to help build out Africa’s payments infrastructure.

About the Compliance Lead role

We are looking for a forward thinking and innovative Compliance Lead to work with other members of the compliance team to build and manage our Regulatory and in-house compliance program, including AML/KYC/CFT, ABC and FC compliance program and operations with the primary aim of mitigating regulatory and compliance risk.

You will be working with Paystack's Head of Compliance and Risk in the management of Paystack's compliance functions and creating strategies and policies to make sure Paystack is compliant with regulations across the different jurisdictions of operations and board approved polices.

Your goal will be to ensure we operate in a legal and ethical manner while meeting our business objectives.

What you’ll do

• Develop and implement an effective regulatory compliance program.
• Create sound internal controls and processes and monitor adherence to them.
• Proactively audit processes, practices and documents to identify weaknesses and revise procedures, reports etc. periodically to identify hidden compliance risks or non-conformity issues
• Evaluate business activities to assess compliance risk and recommend changes to ensure compliance with relevant regulations and internal rules.
• Developing, overseeing and understanding control systems to prevent or deal with violations of regulatory regimes in multiple African jurisdictions.
• Master a deep understanding of the rules and regulations governing each market in which we operate, including monitoring any changes and developments
• Design and implement relevant compliance processes including know your customer (KYC), anti-money laundering (AML), sanctions and combatting the financing of terrorism (CFT) across multiple jurisdictions.
• Design, execute, and manage enterprise-wide and product-specific AML/CTF policy, procedures, risk assessments, and country risk ratings across jurisdiction of operation.
• Develop an effective and fully functional compliance operations team, including but not limited to KYC operations, quality assurance, STR monitoring and reporting
• Oversee the gathering of internal information to meet external regulatory reporting obligations
• Coordination of regulatory exams in different jurisdictions.
• Ensure the fulfillment of all record keeping requirements
• Investigate irregularities and non-compliance issues
• Act as a point-of-contact for all employees on issues relating to money laundering, terrorist financing and receive reports on non-compliance with laws or company policies
• Serve as the compliance officer in Nigeria and a key stakeholder of the Risk & Compliance team in the prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing,.
• Work closely with other compliance officers or serve as a compliance officer in relevant jurisdictions.
• Oversee the development and manage the AML CFT/ financial crimes compliance function.
• Thoroughly embed the compliance culture across Paystack including regular trainings on compliance matters such as: AML/CFT, Sanctions, ABC and rendering training reports to the relevant regulatory authorities and the board.
• Monitor AML/CFT and fraud trends, intelligence, typologies, and regulatory developments; and make recommendations to innovative, implement or improve transaction controls and/or monitoring programs accordingly.
• Collaborate with key stakeholders in the Legal, Regulator, Risk and Compliance teams as where required with the Paystack's growth to articulate concerns around compliance and AML/CTF issues and processes.
• Centralise interaction and communication with country Financial Intelligence Units.
• Design and manage the Global Anti-Money Laundering Questionnaires and Supplement Guides.
• Design and oversee the Global Financial crime operations.
• Review all CDD (Customer Due Diligence) reports or escalations provided by the KYC operations or quality assurance and check for completeness and probe for further information or follow up action as is required.
• Coordinate the collection of management information and statistics.
• Responsible for the coordination of compliance reports across the different jurisdictions.
• Support the Head of Risk & Compliance in reporting to relevant board risk Committees and preparation of monthly, quarterly and annual reports to Paystack’s Senior Management and regulatory bodies, where applicable.

What it takes to succeed at this role:

• 7+ years in a compliance and risk role in a pan-African financial institution.
• Experience in payments/financial services
• Excellent sense of judgment – able to help steer the company to balance innovation and growth with regulatory compliance
• Critical problem-solving skills
• Ability to thrive, adapt and embrace change in rapidly changing regulatory environments
• In-depth knowledge of regulatory requirements and guidelines in Nigeria
• In-depth Knowledge of regulatory requirements and controls in Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism & Proliferation Financing (AML, CFT, CPF), Anti-Bribery and Corruption (ABC) etc.
• Familiar with AML/CFT monitoring systems and related investigation processes and able to recommend technology solutions that would facilitate a seamless process implementation.

The person we want to hire for this role will also be:

• A team player who is willing to pitch in where needed in a fast-paced, growing company.
• Decisive, and capable of making smart decisions in the face of ambiguity and imperfect information.
• An exceptionally hard/smart worker, capable of getting things done.
• Required to travel frequently to countries where Paystack is active.
• Minimum education: Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Technology, Economics, Finance, Business or similar;
• The ability to speak an additional language such as French or Arabic is an added advantage.

Nice to have’s

• Master’s Degree in either economics/business/law (preferred)
• Relevant course, done through ICA (International Compliance Association)
• Pan African Experience
• ACAMS certification

Application Instructions - Read carefully!

1. To apply, click the "Apply for this job" button

2. Complete all the required questions

Questions? Please contact careers@paystack.com.