Head of Onboarding and KYC

Altery is looking for a Head of Onboarding & KYC to lead and evolve our customer onboarding and KYC/KYB function across our international fintech business.
This is a senior leadership role with end-to-end ownership of how retail and corporate customers are onboarded across multiple products, markets and legal entities. You will be responsible for building a scalable, risk-based onboarding model that combines strong financial crime controls with efficient customer journeys and business growth.
Operating at the intersection of Financial Crime, Product, Technology and Operations, you will lead the onboarding organisation, develop its people and processes, and drive greater automation, consistency and operational effectiveness across fiat and crypto products.

Responsibilities

• Own and continuously improve the end-to-end KYC/KYB and onboarding operating model for retail and corporate customers.
• Lead and develop the onboarding and KYC/KYB team, establishing clear ownership, quality standards and decision-making responsibilities.
• Ensure effective CDD and EDD, customer risk assessment, beneficial ownership verification, sanctions/PEP/adverse media screening, and Source of Funds / Source of Wealth assessment.
• Oversee complex and high-risk onboarding cases and ensure appropriate escalation and decision-making.
• Build scalable processes that support multiple customer segments, products, jurisdictions and legal entities.
• Drive automation and straight-through processing, reducing unnecessary manual work and customer friction without compromising financial crime controls.
• Partner closely with Product and Technology to improve onboarding journeys, data quality, risk rules and supporting systems.
• Support new products, markets and customer segments by defining appropriate onboarding controls and operational requirements.
• Establish meaningful performance and quality metrics across onboarding, including decision times, backlogs, quality, customer outcomes and control effectiveness.
• Lead capacity planning, organisational development and continuous improvement across the function.
• Manage and optimise third-party KYC/KYB, identity verification and screening providers.
• Work closely with Financial Crime, Compliance, Fraud, Operations and senior business stakeholders to ensure onboarding decisions are consistent, proportionate and commercially practical.

Requirements

• Significant experience in KYC/KYB, customer onboarding, Financial Crime or customer risk within fintech, payments, crypto or another regulated financial-services environment.
• Proven leadership experience managing and developing onboarding/KYC/KYB teams.
• Experience owning, transforming or scaling onboarding and due-diligence processes rather than simply operating within an established framework.
• Strong practical knowledge of both retail KYC and corporate KYB, including complex ownership structures, UBOs, CDD/EDD, PEPs, sanctions, adverse media and SoF/SoW.
• Experience working across different customer segments, products and/or jurisdictions.
• Strong understanding of risk-based decision-making and the ability to balance regulatory requirements, customer experience and commercial objectives.
• Experience with automated onboarding, screening, identity verification, case-management or customer-risk technology.
• Track record of process improvement, operational scaling or transformation in a regulated environment.
• Strong stakeholder-management skills and the confidence to challenge and influence senior stakeholders.
• Ability to work effectively with Product and Technology teams and translate regulatory and risk requirements into practical processes and customer journeys.
• Data-driven approach to operational performance, quality and risk management.
• Excellent English communication skills.

Professional qualifications such as CAMS, ICA or equivalent are an advantage.