Fnality is building the future of financial market infrastructure – creating regulated, blockchain-based payment systems to power tomorrow’s wholesale banking ecosystem. Backed by leading global banks and operating at the intersection of technology, finance, and regulation, we are powering the future of finance, together. There are no precedents for what we're doing. With you on our side, we'll be setting new ones every day.
Working at Fnality
Be your best:
We have a supportive culture that helps to bring the best out of each and every single one of our employees.
Feel free to explore:
Bring your new ideas and help us to solve problems together by joining a community of experts.
Be part of something bigger: We will support you by fostering an open, honest culture, that enables flexibility and wellbeing. Feel part of something bigger while being yourself.
Feel empowered:
We want you to feel empowered. The nature of our business can help make this a reality. We have the
agility, speed and innovation of a start-up, and a flexible working environment that enables this.
Role Purpose
Fnality EU will be the newest entity within the Fnality Global Payments ecosystem, the operator of a new regulated payment system for Europe.
As this is a new entity and you will be one of the initial hires in the EU, you will be involved in developing and implementing the EU business's risk management framework, with support from colleagues within Fnality Group.
Key Responsibilities:
Strategic Leadership & Governance
· Serve as the executive owner for all risk, compliance, and resilience activities within Fnality Europe and the Euro FnPS
· Provide strategic leadership shaping the organisation’s risk, compliance, and operational resilience strategy as the Euro FnPS grows and scales across the Eurozone
· Partner closely with the Head of Fnality Europe on entity strategy, regulatory engagement, and external stakeholder management
· Establish and lead the EU/Eurozone risk governance structure, including:
· Risk & Compliance Committee(s)
· EU policy frameworks
· Enterprise risk reporting
· ICAAP/ILAAP‑related risk inputs where applicable
· Ensure governance aligns with ECB/SSM expectations for FMIs, ESMA guidelines, and national competent authority (NCA) oversight requirements.
Risk Management & Resilience
· Design, build, and operate the Euro FnPS Risk Management Framework, covering end‑to‑end risk identification, assessment, treatment, monitoring, and reporting.
· Lead oversight of incident management, operational events, and risk/control effectiveness across the Euro FnPS ecosystem
· Ensure compliance with EU regulatory requirements relating to:
· DORA (Digital Operational Resilience Act)
· CPMI‑IOSCO PFMI (Principles for Financial Market Infrastructures)
· NIS2 Directive
· ECB cyber resilience oversight expectations (CROE)
· Provide expert oversight of model risk, liquidity risk, operational risk, technology/cyber risk, and third‑party risk, ensuring alignment with European FMI standards
· Oversee resilience planning, including scenario testing, business continuity, and EU‑mandated operational resilience requirements.
AML/CTF & Financial Crime Oversight
· Develop and maintain AML/CTF and broader financial crime frameworks appropriate for a regulated European FMI
· Oversee KYC/CDD standards, sanctions screening, transaction monitoring design, and suspicious activity management in line with applicable European laws and regulations
· Advise the Board and senior leadership on emerging financial crime risks, regulatory developments, and Euro‑area supervisory expectations
· Ensure frameworks support cross‑border interoperability and the integrity of multi‑currency use cases.
Regulator Engagement & Reporting
· Act as a senior counterpart to relevant European regulators
· Support the European Country Head in building and maintaining strong strategic regulatory relationships
· Ensure high‑quality, transparent regulatory reporting to supervisors, the Fnality Europe Board, and associated governance bodies
· Represent Fnality Europe within global risk, compliance, and resilience forums across the broader Fnality ecosystem.
Cross‑Jurisdiction & Ecosystem Collaboration
· Coordinate with other Fnality legal entities (e.g., UK, US, Canada, Japan) to ensure consistent, aligned risk and compliance practices globally
· Support the development and launch of new cross‑border use cases, including:
· PvP between Euro FnPS and other Fnality Payment Systems
· DvP with European partner platforms (e.g., digital asset venues, tokenised securities platforms)
· Assess and manage partnership risk, interoperability risks, and cross‑jurisdictional regulatory considerations
· Contribute to global Fnality standards on technology risk, financial crime controls, and operational resilience.
Required competencies:
Fnality EU is looking for a Risk Lead who can demonstrate the following competencies:
· Ability to operate as a senior accountable risk function holder within a highly regulated EU financial services environment, with direct responsibility to regulators, the Group CRO and the Board for the risk management of a systemically important, blockchain-based payment system
· Deep knowledge of EU regulatory frameworks relevant to payments, digital assets, operational resilience and financial crime, with experience managing supervisory reviews, regulatory findings and remediation programmes
· Proven capability to design, implement and maintain a comprehensive risk management framework tailored to a systemically important payment system, including adaptation of traditional FMI and payment system risk standards to distributed ledger technology
· Strong expertise across key risk domains including operational, technology, cyber, settlement, liquidity, legal, regulatory, third-party, concentration, model and smart contract risk
· Ability to define and oversee risk appetite, key risk indicators, incident management and escalation, and high-quality risk reporting to the Board and regulators
· Demonstrated leadership in embedding a strong risk culture across all functions, ensuring risk considerations are integrated into technology, security, operations, people, outsourcing and resilience-related policies and processes
· Ability to influence senior leaders and technical teams within Fnality Group to take ownership of risk, promote transparency, constructive challenge and effective decision-making under uncertainty
· Capability to lead Fnality EU regulatory compliance efforts while aligning with Group-wide ways of working, translating regulatory requirements into practical, scalable controls without unnecessary fragmentation across jurisdictions
· Experience managing regulatory divergence between EU, UK and other regimes in collaboration with Group Risk, Compliance, Legal and Technology functions
· Credibility and confidence to represent the Fnality EU in regular engagements with European regulators, clearly explaining complex blockchain and payment system risks and responding effectively to supervisory challenge
· Strong stakeholder management and communication skills, with the ability to operate effectively at Board, executive, regulatory and technical levels
· Willingness and ability to travel within Europe and to the UK as required
· Over time, you will need to take accountability for
· The set-up, day-to-day running and continuous improvement of the Fnality Risk Management Framework for Fnality EU. This includes the risk management model (structure and content), the risk management activities (Identification, Assessment, Evaluation and Treatment), and ongoing assessment and of controls effectiveness. It will also include oversight of Fnality EU's approach to incident management.
· The effective set-up and running of the risk governance framework within Fnality EU (eg risk committee), working to build out in coordination with the other lines of defence in our three lines of defence risk management model.
· Compliance with applicable regulatory requirements on cybersecurity and operational resilience as they apply to Financial Market Infrastructures (FMI) and other FMI regulatory standards.
· Reporting on the risk management of Fnality EU internally (eg to the EU Board and wider Fnality Ecosystem) and externally (eg to the regulators), building effective working relationships with them.
· Sharing information with other Fnality legal entities in different jurisdictions, as required, to ensure cross-jurisdiction risk management and compliance.
· In time, the management of partnership relationships in conjunction with the Group CEO for new use cases where EURO FnPS will provide the payment leg for transactions.
· Provide strategic leadership, engaging stakeholders in shaping a vision for the future direction and development of the organisation - the dimension for expansion include:
· Participation, Use Cases, PvP settlement with other Fnality Payment Systems and DvP settlement with other business platforms.
Required skills and experience
· Extensive risk management expertise in FMIs, banking or financial services gained from compliance or operational risk experience
· Senior interaction with regulators or ideally previous experience working at the ECB or other relevant regulators
· Understanding of relevant European laws and regulations applicable to FMIs
· Ideally, work experience in risk management at start-ups/fintech or other fast-evolving businesses
· Understanding of wholesale payments, technology and cyber security preferred.
Why should you join Fnality?
We employ curious individuals who thrive working in a fast-paced and constantly changing environment, who work best when empowered to drive their own work, and who are not afraid to fail fast and learn quicker.
You will be an analytical thinker who is able to look at tasks and understand the most efficient way to achieve the desired outcome. You will be vigilantly outcomes-focussed and have an insatiable desire to learn, adept at picking up new challenges and giving anything a go. You will want to deliver as much as learn and you will understand how important the power of the team is.
A bit more about us
Digital transformation is changing our lives, work and businesses. While other sectors evolve, however, financial markets remain slow, fragmented and siloed. What the world needs now is a future-facing financial system for the digital age.
At Fnality, we have been speaking – and listening – to the real users of today’s financial systems. From businesses to banks, there is a clear, collective ambition for a simpler, faster, safer and more resilient payment system; one that can move and settle money quickly and efficiently, with minimized risk and much more transparency.
Fnality Global Payments
We are building a network of new payment systems that will enable tokenised, peer-to-peer markets.
Fnality Global Payments (FnGP) will comprise a series of national systems, each regulated in its home jurisdiction. We call each of these a Fnality Payment System (FnPS).
In each payment system, a Fnality settlement asset will act as the settlement/payment asset for any Payment (P), Delivery v, Payment (DvP) or payment vs. payment (PvP) need.
FnGP are underpinned by Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT). The nature of DLT is such that it enables FnGP to:
· Operate a true peer-to-peer market
· Allow for immediate settlement
· Interoperate across business platforms and jurisdictions
The key benefits of the above are:
· Reduced counter-party and credit risk
· Reduced operational risk
· Efficient liquidity management
· An ability to move resources from risk mitigation to business growth
Eligibility
This Head of Risk role is a Eschborn-based role and you must be eligible to work in Europe. Please note we cannot sponsor visas for this role.
How will we use the information about you?
We will use your personal information to process your application, to enable us to assess your suitability for a role and for other legitimate business purposes such as improving our sites and talent management practices. We may share your data with third parties to achieve these purposes. We will not use or share your information for marketing purposes.
We will take appropriate security measures to safeguard your information in accordance with data protection legislation. If you would like further information about how your information may be processed by us, please contact us at privacy@fnality.org.
