Compliance Manager & Deputy MLRO, HK

About this role

ABOUT AIRWALLEX

Airwallex is the only unified payments and financial platform for global businesses. Powered by our unique combination of proprietary infrastructure and software, we empower over 200,000 businesses worldwide – including Brex, Rippling, Navan, Qantas, SHEIN and many more – with fully integrated solutions to manage everything from business accounts, payments, spend management and treasury, to embedded finance at a global scale.

Proudly founded in Melbourne, we have a team of over 2,200 of the brightest and most innovative people in tech across 26 offices around the globe. Valued at US$8 billion and backed by world-leading investors including T. Rowe Price, Visa, Mastercard, Robinhood Ventures, Sequoia, Salesforce Ventures, DST Global, and Lone Pine Capital, Airwallex is leading the charge in building the global payments and financial platform of the future. If you’re ready to do the most ambitious work of your career, join us.

ATTRIBUTES WE VALUE

We hire successful builders with founder-like energy who want real impact, accelerated learning, and true ownership. You bring strong role-related expertise and sharp thinking, and you’re motivated by our mission and operating principles https://www.airwallex.com/us/operating-principles. You move fast with good judgment, dig deep with curiosity, and make decisions from first principles, balancing speed and rigor.

You're humble and collaborative; turn zero‑to‑one ideas into real products, and you “get stuff done” end-to-end. You use AI to work smarter and solve problems faster. Here, you’ll tackle complex, high‑visibility problems with exceptional teammates and grow your career as we build the future of global banking. If that sounds like you, let’s build what’s next.

What you’ll do
As Compliance Manager & Deputy MLRO – Financial Crime (AML/CTF), you will be a senior member of the Hong Kong Financial Crime Compliance (FCC) team and a key second‑line advisor for Airwallex HK’s business. You will ensure broader financial crime compliance programs are in line with Hong Kong regulation and Airwallex’s global standards, with a particular focus on policies and procedures, STR reporting, and continuous improvement of FCC processes.

You will partner cross‑functionally with Product, Commercial, Operations, Data, Legal and global FCC colleagues on high‑risk cases and strategic commercial opportunities, ensuring our controls effectively prevent, detect and report financial crime while enabling sustainable growth. This role is based in our Quarry Bay office in Hong Kong.

Responsibilities:

- Develop and maintain Hong Kong FCC policies, standards and detailed procedures (e.g. KYC/OCDD, EDD, name‑screening, transaction monitoring, STR reporting) and drive ongoing uplift of the local AML/CTF Program in line with the AMLO, AML Guideline and group‑wide standards.

- Provide senior oversight of financial crime investigations arising from transaction monitoring alerts, name‑screening hits, internal referrals and external requests, ensuring robust documentation, clear rationales and appropriate escalation decisions.

- Review and, where required, approve and submit Suspicious Transaction Reports (STRs), and lead ongoing uplift of STR processes, including SLAs, workflow design, backlog management and quality assurance.

- Lead or support cross‑division work on high‑risk customers, industries and complex commercial deals, providing clear, risk‑based FCC advice to Commercial, Product, Strategy, Operations and Legal, and helping structure controls that satisfy regulatory and banking‑partner expectations.

- Partner with Product, Data and Operations to enhance Hong Kong transaction‑monitoring and name‑screening controls (rule design, typology coverage, escalation pathways), and to remediate issues identified through internal audit, independent reviews, external audits and internal issue registers.

- Contribute to Hong Kong FCC governance and reporting by preparing high‑quality MI and commentary for local leadership, risk/audit committees and Boards, including key risk indicators, STR metrics, audit and review outcomes, and the status of remediation and control uplift initiatives.

- Support technology initiatives including the use of Artificial Intelligence to shape operational and functional execution of FCC framework.

Who you are
We’re looking for people who meet the minimum requirements for this role. The preferred qualifications are great to have, but are not mandatory.

Minimum qualifications:

- Bachelor’s Degree in Law, Finance, Business or a related field.

- 7+ years of financial crime compliance experience in a financial institution or payment services / fintech environment, with direct exposure to AML/CTF program execution.

- In‑depth familiarity with Hong Kong AML/CTF laws, rules and regulatory guidance, and how they apply to digital payments, cross‑border flows and e‑commerce use‑cases.

- Hands‑on experience with suspicious transaction investigation and STR filling or other cross‑border reporting, and managing transaction‑monitoring and name‑screening escalations end‑to‑end from alert to closure or reporting.

- Working understanding of Hong Kong and China specific KYC/CDD and STR regulatory expectations.

- Strong stakeholder management skills, with the ability to credibly engage and challenge senior internal stakeholders and external partners (e.g. banks, schemes, regulators) while role‑modelling Airwallex values and behaviours.

- Strong understanding of the policy implementation cycle within a fintech, including the use of intelligent solutions.

- Proven ability to manage multiple deliverables and deliver high-quality outputs under tight deadlines.

- High attention to detail, with experience performing meticulous analysis and drafting clear, accurate risk assessment.

- Auditing or assurance background and prior experience interacting with regulators, ideally including C&ED, the SFC and the HKMA (e.g. in…