Compliance Officer MLRO, Brazil

📋 Description

• • Kraken is at the forefront of the cryptocurrency revolution, dedicated to accelerating global adoption and empowering individuals with financial freedom and inclusion. As a mission-focused company rooted in crypto values, we attract world-class talent driven by a passion for innovation and a belief in the transformative power of blockchain technology. Our commitment extends to providing industry-leading security, comprehensive crypto education, and unparalleled client support across our diverse product suite, including Kraken Pro, Desktop, Wallet, and Kraken Futures. We are a fully remote company with a global presence, fostering a culture of collaboration and diversity, with Krakenites in over 70 countries speaking more than 50 languages.
• • We are seeking a highly motivated and experienced Compliance Officer & MLRO to be based in Brazil, specifically São Paulo, to establish and lead the local compliance and financial crime program for Payward Brasil. This is a critical, hands-on role demanding end-to-end responsibility for the effectiveness of our Anti-Money Laundering (AML), Counter-Terrorist Financing (CTF), Counter-Proliferation Financing (CPF), and sanctions control framework. You will be instrumental in ensuring that local regulatory expectations are seamlessly integrated into all aspects of our operations, including customer onboarding, transaction monitoring, investigations, reporting, governance, and new product launches.
• • As the designated MLRO (Money Laundering Reporting Officer), you will be the primary point of contact for managing internal escalations and ensuring accurate, timely reporting to the Conselho de Controle de Atividades Financeiras (COAF) via the Sistema de Controle de Atividades Financeiras (Siscoaf). This position requires you to act as a statutory officer and be a resident of Brazil.
• • Programme Ownership & Governance: You will own and continuously enhance Payward Brasil's AML/CTF/CPF and sanctions compliance framework, ensuring it not only meets stringent local regulatory requirements but also aligns with Kraken's global group standards. A key aspect of this role involves maintaining and upholding a robust, risk-based approach, which includes conducting comprehensive financial crime risk assessments and designing effective controls for higher-risk customers, products, and channels. You will provide essential compliance sign-off and advisory support for Brazil's go-to-market strategies, product modifications, and critical control decisions, ensuring that all initiatives are compliant and mitigate potential risks.
• • CDD/KYC/KYB Oversight: You will be responsible for overseeing the entire lifecycle of customer controls within Brazil. This includes onboarding processes, Customer Due Diligence (CDD), Enhanced Due Diligence (EDD), ongoing monitoring, periodic reviews, and remediation programs. A significant part of your role will involve driving vendor performance and managing escalations for critical services such as identity validation, CPF validation, and address location checks. Your objective will be to ensure that the outcomes from these vendors meet our 'verify and validate' expectations while remaining proportionate, efficient, and fully auditable, maintaining the integrity of our customer data.
• • Investigations, Suspicious Activity & Reporting (COAF): You will own the internal decision-making process for Suspicious Transaction Reports (STRs), overseeing the triage, quality of investigations, and thorough documentation. Crucially, you will manage the external reporting of STRs to COAF, maintaining meticulous logs and implementing strict confidentiality controls to prevent tipping off. Ensuring operational readiness for Siscoaf filing is paramount, which includes securing the necessary credentials, certificates, and establishing robust process controls to guarantee timely and accurate submissions.
• • Regulatory Engagement & Audits: You will serve as the primary local compliance interface for relevant Brazilian authorities and will coordinate responses for examinations and audits in collaboration with our internal Legal and Regulatory teams. You will play a vital role in supporting readiness for licensing and registration milestones, which involves preparing evidence packs, control attestations, governance artefacts, and tracking remediation efforts to ensure full compliance and a smooth regulatory process.
• • Training, Advisory & Stakeholder Management: You will be responsible for delivering comprehensive training and targeted communications to Brazil operations, the Compliance and Enforcement (CE) teams, product development, and investigations teams. This ensures that all staff members clearly understand their respective compliance responsibilities and the importance of adhering to regulatory standards. Furthermore, you will produce regular, high-quality senior management reporting and Management Information (MI), proactively escalating material risks, incidents, and control gaps to ensure timely awareness and action at the highest levels of the organization.