Compliance Lead in London

Company DescriptionWise is a global technology company, building the best way to move and manage the world's money. Whether people and businesses are sending money to another country, spending abroad, or making and receiving international payments, Wise is on a mission to make their lives easier and save them money. As part of our team, you will be helping us create an entirely new network for the world's money. Job DescriptionWe're looking for a Scheme Compliance Function Lead to join our Spend & Card Issuance Team in London. This role will focus on leading issuer-side scheme compliance and card disputes frameworks across Visa and Mastercard programs. It's a unique opportunity to build on your regulatory and commercial expertise, help deliver Wise's mission of money without borders, and grow within a global, fast-paced environment while ensuring our card issuance operations remain compliant, secure, and built to scale. Wise is a fast-growing business, so we expect that the right candidate will be able to clearly demonstrate exceptional behaviors and risk leadership that have resulted in scalable, compliant outcomes and material risk reduction in prior organizations. At Wise, our mission is to make money borderless — and Scheme Compliance plays a key role in making that happen. Scheme Compliance sits within our Spend & Card Issuance function, overseeing issuer obligations, monitoring programs, launches, and vendor governance. We're a dedicated team that supports the business across all Visa and Mastercard product flows. This is your chance to help shape what Scheme Compliance looks like at Wise — providing high evidence standards, building scalable processes, driving product integrity, and helping us create a best-in-class global issuer compliance function! Your mission is to enable, protect, and empower the business and people of Wise by ensuring our card products meet scheme rules, mitigate fraud and dispute risks, flow through frictionless operations, and support our global growth. Develop and execute a 1–3 year Spend Scheme Compliance strategy that aligns with Wise's business objectives and translates into clear quarterly priorities. Act as the accountable leader and key stakeholder for all issuer-side scheme topics across Visa and Mastercard programs, including BIN management, thresholds, and rule interpretations. Manage and develop a team of Compliance Product Specialists, helping them navigate complex scheme environments through effective coaching, performance management, and clear role definitions. Own Card Disputes Compliance end-to-end across fraud and non-fraud disputes, ensuring rules are operationalised, risks are governed, and recovery rates are optimised. Oversee scheme compliance across the issuer supply chain, including processors, 3DS/authentication providers, tokenisation partners, and card personalisation vendors. Establish early-warning monitoring programs for scheme KPIs (fraud, disputes, thresholds) to prevent fee escalation or enforcement actions. Lead high-stakes negotiations and external relationship management with Visa and Mastercard, setting the tone for Wise advocacy and commitment tracking. Drive continuous improvement by establishing scalable mechanisms, including automated dashboards, standardised templates, and playbooks that reduce manual tasks and single points of failure. Extensive experience in leading issuer-side scheme compliance and disputes operations (Visa and Mastercard) within fintech, banking, or payments. Proven track record of operationalizing scheme rules, managing threshold monitoring programs, and delivering audit-ready control frameworks. Strong leadership and team development skills, with experience coaching specialists to drive cross-functional outcomes under ambiguity. A get-it-done, collaborative approach to problem-solving with a focus on building scalable systems. We're people building money without borders — without judgement or prejudice, too. Inclusive teams help us live our values and make sure every Wiser feels respected, empowered to contribute towards our mission and able to progress in their careers. Financial Services