There are always too many initiatives, too many events, too many regulatory changes and too many headlines fighting for our attention. Decisions that used to take months now have to be made in days, sometimes hours. Regulatory uncertainty is everywhere. Crypto regulations change. New licensing regimes emerge. Cross-border services become Read more…
Over the past months, I’ve interviewed more than 30 compliance officers for very senior roles at excellent companies. Strong CVs.Impressive job titles.Years of experience. Yet, many were rejected. This is not a judgment on their intelligence or commitment. I know how much work goes into building a career in compliance. Read more…
Everyone in compliance seems to wear perfectionism like a badge of honour. High standards. Rigorous processes. Nothing gets through unless it is airtight. I understand it. I used to believe the same thing. But after observing, training and hiring hundreds of compliance and risk professionals, I have come to a Read more…
So, you want to move into a higher-level compliance, risk, or regulatory role in FinTech? You have the experience. You understand the regulations. You have worked on compliance projects and handled responsibilities that matter to the business. But how do you convince a hiring manager that you are ready for Read more…
Let me tell you about one compliance manager. Let’s call him M. His story is basically everyone’s story, just with the names changed. M spent years at PayPal, then got hired by a FinTech startup in 2015 to lead the AML operations team: onboarding, transaction monitoring, due diligence. Since then Read more…
Do you believe in parallel universes? As if there is another version of you somewhere out there, living a completely different life because you made different choices? Well, here’s a theory: what if there were windows or portals or secret screens that could allow you to look into those parallel Read more…
Compliance officers often struggle between wanting to build a solid risk-free fortress and wanting to be curious, learn new things and stay ahead of what may happen.Funnily enough, these two goals are extreme opposites and require completely different skills.When you are building the fortress, you often think “If something goes Read more…
In the FinTech environment, risks and gaps are everywhere. Unfortunately, many regulatory professionals, risk experts and compliance officers believe that informing management about risks, escalating issues, documenting gaps and tracking remediation commitments is a valid strategy for protecting themselves from personal liability. It isn’t always. In some situations, documenting and Read more…
Gap Analysis is a terrible and most inefficient approach to assess any FinTech compliance project. You may be thinking: “Wait, what? Isn’t it how you are supposed to start your compliance analysis..?” Well, yes, we all were indoctrinated to believe and act that way, this is what all compliance gurus Read more…
If you work in FinTech compliance, you already heard me say that hard work, extensive research, attention to detail, and deep regulatory knowledge is not the best way to solve compliance issues and add value within FinTech. You may be shaking your head in disbelief and I totally get it. Read more…