Senior Fraud and Financial Crime Lead

A day in the life:

• Strategic Leadership
• Establish and scale Zopa’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), defining its operating model, governance, case acceptance criteria, and investigative standards.
• Design and implement a robust triage and prioritisation framework for complex investigations, including escalations from operational teams and high-risk referrals.
• Act as the bank’s subject matter expert on financial crime and fraud typologies, conducting deep-dive thematic investigations into emerging threats and systemic risks.
• Develop and evolve Zopa’s complex investigations strategy, ensuring alignment with regulatory expectations, enterprise risk appetite, and industry best practice.
• Maintain up-to-date awareness of emerging financial crime typologies, organised criminal methodologies, and regulatory developments impacting UK banking and FinTech.


• Complex Investigations & Intelligence-Led Delivery
• Lead end-to-end complex financial crime investigations, using internal data, external intelligence, and analytical insight to identify root causes, quantify exposure, and recommend control enhancements.
• Produce high-quality intelligence reports, including clear articulation of typologies, impact assessments, and remediation recommendations.
• Identify systemic weaknesses and control gaps through investigative findings, and drive targeted enhancements across detection, prevention, and monitoring frameworks.
• Develop thematic reporting to inform senior stakeholders of emerging risks, trends, and strategic priorities.


• Cross-Functional & External Impact
• Partner with Product, Technology, Operations, Risk, and Compliance teams across the First and Second Lines of Defence to embed proportionate, risk-based controls into product design and customer journeys.
• Act as a senior escalation point for complex or high-risk cases requiring expert judgement.
• Represent Zopa at industry forums and, where appropriate, law enforcement engagements, contributing to intelligence-sharing and collaborative disruption efforts.
• Build and maintain strong industry networks to ensure Zopa remains at the forefront of financial crime prevention and investigative best practice.

About you:

• You are an experienced financial crime professional who thrives on solving complex, ambiguous problems. You combine strategic thinking with hands-on investigative capability and are comfortable operating at both operational and executive levels. You are intellectually curious, analytically rigorous, and motivated by building capability from the ground up.


• Essential Experience
• Extensive experience in financial crime and fraud typologies, including organised crime methodologies, with deep knowledge of relevant UK regulatory and compliance frameworks.
• Demonstrable experience establishing or significantly enhancing a Financial Intelligence Unit or complex investigations function within a banking or FinTech environment.
• Proven track record of leading complex, intelligence-led investigations, including scoping, hypothesis development, evidence gathering, analysis, and production of conclusions and recommendations.
• Strong understanding of how to assess materiality and sufficiency of evidence — knowing when further investigation adds value versus when conclusions are robust and actionable.
• Experience engaging with law enforcement, regulatory bodies, or industry intelligence groups.


• You’ll Thrive If You
• Enjoy building and leading high-performing investigative functions from first principles.
• Translate complex investigative findings into structured reports, executive briefings, and actionable remediation plans.
• Are comfortable analysing large and complex datasets to extract meaningful insights.
• Communicate technical and investigative concepts clearly to non-technical stakeholders, influencing decision-making through structured argumentation and evidence.