Head of Fraud, Payments & Banking

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.

Responsibilities

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

Requirements

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; 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; Comfortable operating in a fast-paced, high-growth, and rapidly evolving industry

Nice to have

Strong understanding of blockchain technology, cryptocurrencies, and associated fraud risks preferred; Experience operating under, or reporting to, a UK/EU regulator strongly preferred given the team's non-US footprint; Bachelor's degree in a relevant field (e.g., Computer Science, Business Administration, Finance) preferred