Head of Fraud, Payments & Banking

Building the Future of Open Finance. Payward - the parent company behind Kraken, NinjaTrader, Breakout, xStocks, Payward Services and CF Benchmarks - has spent the last 15 years building one of the most modern and globally accessible financial infrastructure platforms in the industry, built to advance an open, global financial system.

The team Founded in 2011, Kraken is one of the world's longest-standing crypto platforms, trusted by over 10 million individuals and institutions across the globe. It offers spot trading, margin, futures, staking, and OTC services, with products built for both individual investors and institutional clients.

As Head of Fraud, Payments & Banking, you'll own the strategy, governance, and day-to-day execution of Kraken's payments and banking fraud prevention programs, from front-line detection and analyst operations through policy design and executive reporting. This role carries a strong mandate to bring a consistent global coverage lens across all markets — ensuring fraud controls, payments oversight, and banking risk programs meet the highest regulatory bar across every jurisdiction we operate in.

The opportunity

• Own the end-to-end payments and banking fraud prevention strategy across all Kraken products, setting the vision, roadmap, and OKRs in collaboration with Product, Engineering, Security, Compliance, and Legal.
• Build, lead, and mentor a multi-tiered fraud organization — analysts, investigators, and managers — establishing career progression frameworks with clear advancement criteria.
• Work closely with the Executive Team and regulators to stay ahead of emerging fraud trends, techniques, and technologies across the payments and banking industry, directing in-depth analysis to proactively identify and close vulnerabilities.
• Monitor payment trends and regulatory shifts, identifying opportunities to optimize approval/decline rates and revenue while maintaining fraud discipline.
• Design, implement, and maintain payments and banking fraud policies, rule frameworks, and control processes across all products.
• Maintain Risk assessment, mitigation, Governance and Audit controls.
• Lead comprehensive risk assessments and implement preventive controls that support governance, audit, and regulatory requirements.
• Oversee payments and banking fraud detection systems and tools, and own escalation pathways for complex or novel fraud cases in partnership with Legal, Compliance, and Customer Support.
• Ensure the analyst team maintains SLA and QA standards across high-volume, real-time alert queues.
• Serve as the primary point of coordination between payments and banking Fraud Operations and Customer Support, Compliance, Legal, Product, and Security.
• Direct data analysis and reporting on fraud and payment KPIs, delivering clear, actionable reporting on a daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly cadence to executive leadership.
• Apply a consistent global coverage standard across all markets, ensuring they are proactively tracked and embedded into policy rather than addressed reactively.

What you bring

• 10+ years of experience in banking, payment processing, or fraud risk management, including experience building or leading a fraud team.
• Demonstrated experience managing both strategic fraud/payments programs and front-line, high-volume analyst operations.
• Proven track record with Card, Third-Party, and Peer-to-Peer payment fraud, along with relevant banking regulatory and compliance frameworks.
• Working knowledge of UK and other non-US regulatory regimes (e.g., FCA, PSR) relevant to fraud, payments, and banking; experience operating under, or reporting to, a UK/EU regulator strongly preferred given the team's non-US footprint.
• Strong understanding of blockchain technology, cryptocurrencies, and associated fraud risks preferred.
• Solid grounding in data analytics and reporting, with a track record of using data-driven insight to guide decisions.
• Exceptional communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to influence cross-functional and executive stakeholders.
• Experience developing career frameworks, coaching managers, and scaling operational teams.
• Bachelor's degree in a relevant field (e.g., Computer Science, Business Administration, Finance) preferred.
• Comfortable operating in a fast-paced, high-growth, and rapidly evolving industry.

Unless a specific application deadline is stated in the job posting, applications are accepted on an ongoing basis. Please note, applicants are permitted to redact or remove information on their resume that identifies age, date of birth, or dates of attendance at or graduation from an educational institution. We consider qualified applicants with criminal histories for employment on our team, assessing candidates in a manner consistent with the requirements of the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance.

Our commitment

Payward is powered by people from around the world and we celebrate the diverse talents, backgrounds, contributions, and unique perspectives that everyone brings to the table. We hire based on merit, seeking out people with the right abilities, knowledge, and skills for the job. We encourage you to apply for roles where you don't fully meet the listed requirements, especially if you're passionate or knowledgeable about crypto. We may ask candidates to complete job-related skills or work-style assessments as part of our hiring process. These assessments evaluate competencies relevant to the role and are applied consistently across candidates for similar positions. Results are considered alongside experience and interviews, and are not the sole basis for any employment decision.

As an equal opportunity employer, we don't tolerate discrimination or harassment of any kind, whether based on race, ethnicity, age, gender identity, citizenship, religion, sexual orientation, disability, pregnancy, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic as outlined by federal, state, or local laws.