Director, Financial Crime Operations - Business Banking

At Oak North, we’re on a mission to empower the UK’s most ambitious businesses. Since 2015, we’ve lent over $18 billion across the UK and US, helped create more than 58,000 new homes and 36,000 new jobs, and supported hundreds of thousands of personal savers — all while fuelling the UK economy.

The Director, Fraud and Financial Crime Operations will provide strategic leadership of Oak North Bank’s first line of defense for business current accounts, covering fraud prevention, AML transaction monitoring, and sanctions screening. This role will set the vision, lead cross‑functional execution, and ensure that financial crime risk management not only meets regulatory standards but enables Oak North’s ambitious growth plans which is designed and executed for scale.

• Own and continuously evolve the Bank’s financial crime and claims management framework.
• Lead, mentor, and scale teams across Manchester and India, embedding innovation and resilience.
• Provide oversight of core platforms and optimise them for effectiveness, efficiency, and compliance.
• Partner with senior stakeholders across Compliance, Operational Risk, Product, Engineering, and Operations to build a scalable and compliant operating model.
• Represent Oak North with regulators, auditors, and industry bodies, ensuring credibility and thought leadership.

• Define and lead the first line strategy for fraud, AML, sanctions, and claims management.
• Anticipate emerging financial crime threats and regulatory changes (FCA, POCA, MLRs, JMLSG, OFSI, PSD2, VISA scheme rules).
• Serve as executive escalation point for all major fraud, AML, sanctions, or dispute claims issues.
• Own risk appetite calibration, KRIs, and thresholds in partnership with Compliance and Operational Risk.
• Provide OpCo with thematic insights, residual risk reporting, and forward‑looking risk strategies.

• Act as business owner for the fraud and transaction monitoring and screening platforms.
• Own continuous optimisation of rules across fraud, AML, and sanctions — ensuring balance between detection, efficiency, and customer friction.
• Lead structured monthly reviews of system performance, exercising decision‑making authority to tighten, loosen, or reconfigure rules as appropriate, subject to relevant socialisation and governance reviews.
• Implement synthetic testing, A/B experimentation, and challenger/champion models to validate rule effectiveness even when genuine cases are absent.
• Partner with Engineering to embed machine learning, automation, and advanced analytics.
• Ensure monitoring and screening systems are future‑proofed to support scaling from 100s → 10,000s of accounts.

• Oversee financial crime and risk controls across all features of UK business current accounts (payments, overdrafts, lending, direct debits, standing orders, international transfers, faster payments, CHAPS, card payments).
• Lead the claims management function for card payments, including Section 75 claims, VISA chargebacks, consumer disputes, fraud reimbursements, and adherence to VISA scheme requirements.
• Ensure compliance with PSD2, Strong Customer Authentication (SCA), and APP scam reimbursement rules.
• Partner with Product and Engineering to build seamless customer journeys with fraud/claims controls embedded at design stage.
• Serve as Oak North’s subject‑matter expert on payments regulation, card scheme requirements, and dispute processes.

• Act as SME for new product launches, features, and expansions — defining “what good looks like” for fraud, AML, sanctions, and claims risk.
• Collaborate with Compliance (2
  
  LOD) and Operational Risk to ensure risk appetite, policies, and assurance frameworks are aligned.
• Drive activity with Product and Engineering to design new functionality with embedded controls (e.g., card issuance, international payments).
• Partner with Operations to delegate low‑risk processes in a controlled way, optimising cost and efficiency.
• Influence senior stakeholders at HQ on strategy, investment, and risk…