Senior Manager, Financial Crimes

Work Arrangement:This is an onsite role; it is not a remote position, and hybrid arrangements are limited

Employment Type:Full-time, exempt

Department:Compliance

Reports To:Chief Compliance Officer (CCO)

Key Partners:Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) Officer, Chief Operating Officer (COO)

Direct Reports:None initially, added as the business scales based on need

Compensation:$160,000 - $180,000 annually, plus benefits

Ark Financial Technology (Ark Fin Tech) is an innovative leader in financial technology dedicated to empowering consumers and businesses with a Next Gen, AI-powered platform for international banking and payments. Headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, the company pairs advanced AI with a deep understanding of global business needs and a culture of collaboration, innovation, and excellence.

Ark Fin Tech is seeking a Senior Manager, Fraud Operations, to build and lead its fraud prevention, detection, and investigations function within the Compliance Management team. Reporting to the CCO and partnering closely with the BSA Officer and working with both and with the COO, the incumbent owns the fraud program end to end across both consumer and business demand deposit accounts (DDAs): strategy and detection rules, alert and case management, disputes and claims, loss and recovery, and the investigation of fraudulent or unusual activity, escalating through the sponsor bank partnership model.

A minimum of ten (10) years of direct fraud experience is required, and depth of fraud expertise is the primary qualification for this role and will be evaluated closely during the interview process. Candidates must bring deep, demonstrated expertise across consumer and business account fraud typologies, fraud detection and decisioning systems, and fraud investigations conducted to a documented, audit-ready standard. This is a hands-on individual contributor role in a startup environment.

There is no existing team to delegate to, so the Senior Manager sets strategy and also personally works queues, conducts investigations, writes referrals, and builds procedures and reporting from scratch, partnering with Operations, Technology, Legal, Product, and Customer Support.

This is a critical role with direct interaction and high visibility across Ark Fin Tech’s executive team and Sr. Director and Director level managers. Ark Fin Tech operates as a flat organization, with no additional layers of management. The role calls for someone who is comfortable in that setting: able to communicate complex fraud, risk, and regulatory matters clearly to a senior audience, exercise independent and sound judgment under pressure, raise issues and disagree candidly with executives, and speak for the fraud program with the Board, regulators, and sponsor bank partners.

• Own and continuously improve the end-to-end fraud program for consumer and business DDAs, including strategy, detection rules and models, alert queues, case management, and escalation paths across onboarding, transactions, and account servicing
• Set the strategy and standards for investigative review of fraudulent and unusual activity, and provide escalation support and final decisioning on complex or high-risk cases
• Monitor fraud losses, decline and false-positive rates, and other performance indicators, and tune rules and thresholds to balance loss, customer friction, and operational capacity
• Prepare and submit Unusual Activity Referrals (UARs) to Ark Fin Tech’s sponsor bank partner(s), ensuring timeliness, quality, and audit-ready recordkeeping, partnering with the BSA Officer on final UAR escalation decisions
• Manage dispute, chargeback, and claims processes for consumer accounts under Reg E and for business accounts under NACHA, UCC Article 4A, and card network rules, including timelines, provisional credit, recovery, and customer communication standards
• Support the customer due diligence (CDD) and enhanced due diligence (EDD) program where fraud risk indicators are present, including heightened customer risk, including source-of-funds verification, PEP screening, and adverse media analysis
• Maintain the fraud risk assessment, policies, procedures, and a quality assurance program for investigations, preserving confidentiality of referral and unusual activity information consistent with BSA safe-harbor requirements
• Serve as a key point of contact for regulatory examinations, sponsor-bank reviews, and independent testing, responding to findings and…