Senior Financial Crime Investigation and Mule Risk Strategy Lead

Senior Financial Crime Investigation and Mule Risk Strategy Lead

Join to apply for the Senior Financial Crime Investigation and Mule Risk Strategy Lead role at Zopa Bank.

We’re looking for a Senior Fraud and Financial Crime Lead to join our mission to make money work better for millions of customers. In this pivotal role, you’ll be at the forefront of protecting our customers and Zopa from financial crime and fraud while ensuring we deliver the seamless, human experience we’re known for. Reporting into our new Manchester office, you’ll set up and lead our Financial Crime Investigation Unit (FIU) and drive our mule risk strategy across our entire product ecosystem—from current accounts, loans, savings, credit cards, and car finance products. This is your chance to shape how a modern bank thinks about and tackles fraud in an increasingly digital world.

As our Senior Financial Crime and Fraud Lead, you’ll be responsible for identifying, investigating and disrupting organised crime activities and will be the architect of our defence strategy, working directly with our Director of Fraud to keep our customers safe while enabling our business to grow boldly.

A Day In The Life

• Strategic Leadership: Be hands-on whilst being responsible for establishing the FIU as a function. Devise prioritisation approach for triaging work into the FIU (including escalations from Operations Teams) and ensure that top priorities are addressed.
• Act as Zopa’s subject matter expert in fraud and financial crime typologies, conducting in-depth investigations into arising trends and advising stakeholders on emerging threats; stay abreast of regulatory changes and industry best practices.
• Own and evolve Zopa’s strategy to identify, investigate, and disrupt mule accounts. Maintain up-to-date awareness of emerging mule trends, typologies, and organised fraud risks impacting FinTech and financial institutions.
• Hands-on Delivery: Use internal data and external insight to perform in-depth financial crime investigations to uncover emerging threats and drive continuous improvement; identify enhancement opportunities and share insights with stakeholders to feed into product roadmaps and prioritization decisions.
• Monitor, analyse, and report on mule trends; create effective strategies to minimise our Fraud and Financial Crime risk exposure. Identify opportunities for improvements, system enhancements, and control strengthening.
• Investigate and size exposure to existing and emerging threats; identify opportunities for improvements in our control framework to better mitigate risks. Support regulatory audits, internal reviews, and ad-hoc reporting requirements.
• Cross-functional Impact: Champion industry collaboration; build and maintain strong networks and partnerships to keep Zopa at the forefront of fraud and financial crime prevention and detection activities. Represent the bank at industry and law enforcement meetings; build/maintain network of contacts to aid investigative work and help assess Zopa’s exposure to new and emerging threats.
• Partner with Product, Tech, Operations, and Risk teams across both First and Second Lines of Defence to embed robust controls into everything we build.

About You

• You’re a financial crime and fraud expert who thrives on solving complex problems and turning challenges into opportunities. You combine strategic thinking with hands-on delivery, and you’re energised by working in a fast-paced, collaborative environment.
• Essential experience: Extensive experience in Financial Crime and Fraud typologies and their modus operandi, in-depth knowledge of regulations and compliance requirements. Experience in the banking industry, collaborating with law enforcement, security, government.
• Experience in setting up an FIU and conducting investigations; know when to stop digging, when data is sufficient, when to validate assumptions without leaping to conclusions.
• Up-to-date knowledge of emerging mule trends, typologies, and financial crime risks impacting FinTech and financial institutions.
• You’ll thrive if you love working collaboratively with cross-functional teams to solve complex problems; translate findings into effective summaries, reports, and action plans; communicate output to drive action; and analyse large datasets to draw meaningful conclusions and present actionable insights to non-technical audiences.

Please note, this role requires participation in an on-call rota to manage fraud and financial crime risk events outside of standard working hours.

Location & Working Arrangements

From September 2025, Zopa will open a brand-new office in Manchester at WeWork, Dalton Place, 29 John Dalton Street, M2 6WF. This hybrid role requires you to come to our Manchester office 2-3 days a week. You’ll also have the option of working from abroad for up to 120 days a year. Subject to having the right to work in the country of choice.

Diversity Statement

Zopa is proud to offer a workplace free from discrimination. Diversity of experience, perspectives, and backgrounds leads to better products for our customers and a unique culture for our people. We are nearly 50 nationalities strong, with a DE&I forum and a culture where everyone can bring their full self to work. Our approach to DE&I is reflected in our hiring process; please let us know if you require any reasonable adjustments.

Seniority level

• Not Applicable

Employment type

• Full-time

Job function

• Finance and Sales

Industries

• Financial Services, IT Services and IT Consulting, and Banking

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