Financial Crime Manager

About us

Aave Labs began with a simple question: how do we make financial services like borrowing, saving, and earning more accessible globally?

We built the Aave Protocol, now the world’s largest and most trusted onchain lending market, connecting decentralized finance with individuals, traditional finance, and fintech.

Today, we build trusted, high-quality products that expand access to lending, credit, and savings globally

Our culture

We build trusted products that help people access and discover economic opportunities.

We hold a high bar for quality and craftsmanship. No detail is too small. Trust depends on it.

We’re a global team building products people can actually use, turning complex technology into something simple and reliable.

We stay aligned, move quickly, and think long term, while keeping teams lean and focused on impact.

About the role

We are looking for a Financial Crime Manager to join our growing team and support our first line of defence. The Financial Crime Manager will be responsible for helping to ensure that we comply with all applicable laws and regulations related to preventing and detecting money laundering, terrorist financing, fraud, bribery and corruption; and circumventing economic sanctions.

The role requires a detailed understanding of the regulatory environment for payments companies and cryptoasset trading firms, as well as a keen eye for identifying and mitigating compliance risks.

How you can make an impact:

• Oversee the day-to-day execution of financial crime controls, including customer due diligence, sanctions and adverse media screening, transaction monitoring, investigations and escalations
• Conduct and oversee blockchain analytics, wallet screening and investigations involving on-chain activity, including assessing direct and indirect exposure to illicit activity, sanctioned entities and other financial crime typologies
• Identify, investigate and respond to suspected fraud, including account takeover, identity fraud, payment fraud and other emerging typologies
• Identify and implement opportunities to enhance financial crime controls, processes and systems through automation, technology and data-driven solutions, improving operational efficiency while maintaining effective risk management
• Develop and maintain quality assurance processes to assess the effectiveness and consistency of financial crime operations, identify control deficiencies and drive timely remediation
• Support the MLRO/BSAO with suspicious activity reporting obligations, regulatory enquiries and financial crime-related audits, ensuring appropriate documentation and recordkeeping
• Partner closely with Product, Engineering, Operations and Customer Support teams to ensure financial crime risks are appropriately identified and mitigated throughout the customer lifecycle
• Provide guidance, oversight and mentorship to Financial Crime and Support analysts, ensuring consistent decision-making, effective workload management and timely resolution of complex investigations
• Strong understanding of financial crime risks associated with payment services, cryptoassets, decentralised finance (DeFi), self-hosted wallets and blockchain-based transactions
• Strong technical aptitude and experience leveraging data analytics, automation and emerging technologies to enhance financial crime detection, investigations and operational efficiency
• Familiarity with financial crime regulatory frameworks across multiple jurisdictions, particularly the UK, EU and US, including applicable AML/CTF, sanctions and cryptoasset regulatory requirements

Let's connect if:

• Bachelor's degree in business, finance, law, or a related field
• At least 7 years of relevant experience in a risk or compliance role within a financial services organisation, consultancy firm, or regulator. Experience of both payments and cryptoassets is highly preferred
• Deep knowledge of relevant financial crime regulations and best practices, as well as familiarity with relevant industry standards and guidelines
• Experience conducting financial crime risk assessments and developing policies, procedures, and controls
• Experience with compliance-related tools, including for customer screening purposes, transaction monitoring, blockchain analytics, etc.
• Excellent analytical and communication skills, with the ability to identify and communicate complex information to both technical and non-technical audiences
• Ability to work independently and collaboratively, as well as to manage multiple priorities and deadlines