Financial Crime Manager

Role Overview

You will take ownership of Paystack’s financial crime detection operations, overseeing both fraud and anti-money laundering efforts across the full lifecycle—from prevention through to investigation and remediation. On a typical day, you’ll be reviewing detection performance metrics, refining monitoring logic with your team, and partnering with engineering and product leaders to build more effective systems that support transaction growth without compromising security. Your work directly protects customers and the business, ensuring Paystack remains a trusted platform in the payments ecosystem.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end financial crime detection function, including fraud monitoring, AML alert handling, sanctions screening, and case investigations, ensuring all components work together seamlessly.
• Design, tune, and validate detection rules, scenarios, and thresholds so they keep pace with evolving fraud typologies and regulatory expectations across different markets.
• Lead and develop a team of specialists and first-line managers, setting clear priorities, coaching for performance, and ensuring consistent quality in daily execution.
• Translate regulatory requirements, partner obligations, and audit findings into practical technical and operational controls that scale with transaction volume.
• Build and maintain feedback loops between investigation outcomes and detection strategies, so lessons from real cases continuously improve signal quality and reduce false positives.
• Define and track key performance indicators, service-level agreements, and quality frameworks for all financial crime teams, using data to manage capacity and efficiency.
• Collaborate closely with Product, Engineering, Data, Legal, and Compliance teams to shape the roadmap for monitoring, alerting, and case management tooling.
• Represent the financial crime function in audits, partner reviews, and regulatory engagements, providing clear updates to senior stakeholders on performance and emerging risks.

Requirements & Qualifications

• At least 7 years of experience in financial crime roles within payments, fintech, banking, or other financial services settings.
• Proven background in designing, building, and tuning fraud or AML detection systems, including rules, models, and threshold strategies backed by observable outcomes.
• Strong analytical skills with hands-on experience measuring detection performance through metrics such as precision, recall, false positive rates, alert-to-case conversion, and loss figures.
• A systems-thinking mindset: you build scalable, maintainable monitoring frameworks rather than relying on one-off rules or manual interventions.
• Deep working knowledge of financial crime typologies, fraud patterns, AML/CTF requirements, sanctions obligations, and relevant regulatory expectations.
• Established leadership experience, including setting team direction, coaching individuals, managing performance, and developing first-line managers.
• Excellent communication ability, especially when translating complex technical concepts for non-technical stakeholders or presenting operational updates to executives.
• High ownership orientation, comfortable operating in ambiguous, fast-moving environments where priorities shift and demands grow quickly.
• Preferred: familiarity with monitoring platforms, alerting systems, transaction screening, and case management tools; relevant certifications such as ACAMS, ICA, CFE, CFCS, or equivalent are a plus.

What We Offer / Why Join

This is a high-impact role at the centre of Paystack’s trust and safety efforts. You’ll have the opportunity to shape how the company detects and responds to financial crime at scale, directly influencing product direction and operational strategy in a fast-growing payments business. If you thrive on solving complex problems and building resilient systems from the ground up, this is a chance to make a lasting impact on the platform’s security and reputation.