Head of KYC
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Mercury | $244,000 - $287,100
Original Job Description: Head of KYC
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. In order to do so, identifying our customers, collecting and verifying their information and ensuring we understand the various risks they bring is critical.
To us, KYC is much more than a legal requirement. It is the foundation that our risk program is built on. Ultimately, we aim to make all of our KYC, KYB, and risk assessment processes frictionless, efficient and robust. We’d like to go way beyond the industry standard, and innovate in all areas of risk management.
We are looking for a proactive senior leader and a first-principles thinker who will bring a strategic mindset to the way we approach KYC, CIP and due diligence, both and bridge our onboarding processes with our ongoing efforts to manage customers’ risk profile. The Head of KYC will help shape our risk management vision more broadly as a member of the Mercury Risk leadership team, and will play a key role in all aspects of risk management while partnering closely with Product and Compliance orgs.
*Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group and Evolve Bank & Trust®; Members FDIC.
In this role, you will:
- Lead a large group (>40 individuals) responsible for conducting application reviews and ongoing due diligence, and make decisions on applications and accounts.
- Set strategy and vision for the newly formed KYC team ensuring alignment across multiple risk teams.
- Mentor, coach and support Onboarding and Ongoing Due Diligence managers.
- Partner cross-functionally to increase review efficiency and customer experience through automation, tooling improvements and clear policies and procedures.
- Drive short- and long-term initiatives to enhance risk performance, including SLAs, approval rates, friction, losses, etc.
- Understand KYC and due diligence implications on other risk areas, including Fraud, AML, Sanctions, and others, and ensure a robust first line of defense.
- Educate the company on Risk’s KYC efforts, and what we’re doing to strengthen them while we reduce unnecessary friction.
- Become an expert on Mercury’s products, and Risk’s program, policies, and tools.
- Enable risk based decisions by clearly articulating the balance between KYC and identification requirements, and the product experience.
- Builds effective professional relationships with business groups, internal/external stakeholders and trust with banking partners.
You should:
- Have 7+ years of work experience in Onboarding / KYC / Due Diligence or related operational area, 10+ years of work experience overall.
- 7+ years of people management experience (ICs + managers), ideally in Fintech, Risk, Compliance, Operations, or Trust & Safety.
- Be a strong analytical thinker - you are metrics-driven and results oriented.
- Be an excellent collaborator and communicator - you can motivate your team, secure buy-in from leadership, and work effectively with all functions, including Eng, Support, Compliance, Product, and Data Science to drive outcomes.
- Be comfortable with decision making in a fast paced, ambiguous environment.
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: $244,000 - $287,100 USD
- US employees outside of New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle, or the San Francisco Bay Area: $219,600 - $258,400 USD
- Canadian employees (any location): CAD $222,000 - $261,300
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