Senior Financial Crime Investigation and Mule Risk Strategy Lead

Zopa Ltd; City of Westminster; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

A modern financial institution in the UK seeks a Senior Fraud and Financial Crime Lead to spearhead fraud prevention efforts. This role entails establishing a Financial Crime Investigation Unit, conducting in-depth investigations, and developing strategies to combat fraud. The ideal candidate will have extensive experience in financial-crime typologies and effective communication skills to convey findings clearly. The position is hybrid, requiring office presence 2-3 days weekly, with the flexibility to work from abroad for part of the year.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience in financial-crime and fraud typologies.
• Experience in setting up an FIU and hands-on investigations.
• Up-to-date knowledge of emerging mule trends and financial-crime risks.

Responsibilities

• Establish the Financial Crime Investigation Unit.
• Conduct in-depth investigations into fraud typologies and threats.
• Drive the strategy for identifying and investigating mule accounts.

Job description

Overview

We're looking for a Senior Fraud and Financial Crime Lead to join our mission to make money work better for millions of customers. In this pivotal role, you'll be at the forefront of protecting our customers and Zopa from financial crime and fraud while ensuring we deliver the seamless, human experience we're known for. Reporting into our new Manchester office, you'll set‑up and lead our Financial Crime Investigation Unit (FIU) and drive our mule risk strategy across our entire product ecosystem – from current accounts, loans, savings, credit cards, and car finance products. This is your chance to shape how a modern bank thinks about and tackles fraud in an increasingly digital world. As our Senior Financial Crime and Fraud Lead, you'll be responsible for identifying, investigating and disrupting organised crime activities and will be the architect of our defence strategy, working directly with our Director of Fraud to keep our customers safe while enabling our business to grow boldly. A day in the life of the role involves participation in an on‑call rota to manage fraud and financial crime risk events outside of standard working hours. The hybrid role requires you to come to our London office 2‑3 days a week, with the option to work from abroad for up to 120 days a year. But no matter where you are, we'll make sure you've got everything you need to thrive, both in your work and home life, from day one.

Responsibilities

• Be hands‑on whilst responsible for establishing the FIU as a function, devising a prioritisation approach for triaging work into the FIU (including escalations from Operations Teams) and ensuring that top priorities are addressed.
• Act as Zopa's subject‑matter expert in fraud and financial‑crime typologies, conducting in‑depth investigations into emerging trends and advising stakeholders on emerging threats while staying abreast of regulatory changes and industry best practices.
• Own and evolve Zopa's strategy to identify, investigate, and disrupt mule accounts, maintaining up‑to‑date awareness of emerging mule trends, typologies, and organised fraud risks impacting FinTech and financial institutions.
• Use internal data and external insight to perform in‑depth financial‑crime investigations to uncover emerging threats, drive continuous improvement, identify enhancement opportunities and share this insight with key stakeholders to feed into product roadmaps and prioritisation decisions.
• Monitor, analyse, and report on mule trends, create effective strategies to minimise our fraud and financial‑crime risk exposure, identify opportunities for improvements, system enhancements, and control strengthening.
• Investigate and size exposure to existing and emerging threats, identify opportunities for improvements in our control framework to better mitigate the risks identified, and support regulatory audits, internal reviews, and ad‑hoc reporting requirements.
• Champion industry collaboration, build and maintain strong networks and partnerships to keep Zopa at the forefront of fraud and financial‑crime prevention and detection activities.
• Represent Zopa at industry and law‑enforcement meetings, build / maintain a network of contacts to aid investigative work and help more accurately assess Zopa's exposure to new and emerging threats.
• Partner with Product, Tech, Operations, and Risk teams across both first and second lines of defence to embed robust controls into everything we build.
• Drive continuous improvement and translate findings into effective summaries, reports, and action plans that communicate the outcome of investigations and drive action.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience in financial‑crime and fraud typologies and their modus operandi, with in‑depth knowledge of regulations and compliance requirements developed through work within the banking industry and collaboration with law‑enforcement, security, and government colleagues.
• Experience in setting up an FIU and hands‑on experience in conducting investigations, knowing when to stop digging, when data is sufficient for analysis, and when to further validate assumptions without leaping to conclusions.
• Up‑to‑date knowledge of emerging mule trends, typologies, and financial‑crime risks impacting FinTech and financial institutions.

Desired Traits

• Love working collaboratively with cross‑functional teams to solve complex problems.
• Translate findings into effective summaries, reports, and action plans to communicate investigative outcomes and drive action.
• Have an inquisitive mind, enjoy analysing large datasets to draw meaningful conclusions, and communicate findings to a non‑technical audience with clear, actionable insights, making compelling data‑driven arguments to effect change.

About Zopa

Our Story: Hello there. We're Zopa. We started our journey back in 2005, building the first ever peer‑to‑peer lending company. Fast forward to 2020 and we launched Zopa Bank – a bank that listens to what our customers don’t like about finance and does the opposite. We're redefining what it feels like to work in finance. Our vision for a new era of banking puts people front and centre – we've built a business that empowers everyone to aim high, every day, to move finance forward. Find out more about our fantastic offerings at Zopa.com! We're incredibly proud of our achievements and none of it would be possible without the amazing team here. We've won industry awards and were named in the top three UK’s Most Loved Workplaces. If you embrace unconventional challenges, are unafraid to think differently and are driven to make an outsized impact, you'll thrive here at Zopa. We invite you to join us and make it count. Want to see us in action? Follow us on Instagram @zopalife.

Subject to having the right to work in the country of choice.