Compliance Manager (AMLRO & Data Protection Supervisor)

Job Summary:

This role is responsible for maintaining and operating the company’s Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and data protection practices and policies across Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. Serving as the officially appointed AMLRO, this role is considered a Key Management Personnel (KMP) position under Bank of Ghana regulatory requirements. The position also acts as the designated Data Protection Supervisor across the company, so the successful candidate will have demonstrable experience across compliance, AML, and data protection with suitable qualifications. Through cross-functional collaboration, the successful candidate will embed compliance practices into business operations, ensuring standards and procedures meet relevant regulatory requirements, local privacy laws, and uphold ISO 27001:2022 standards.

Key responsibilities:

AMLRO: 

• Maintain and operate the company’s compliance policies including AML/CFT in line with applicable local and international regulatory requirements in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.
• Maintain accurate records of all AML activities, including periodic AML risk assessments. 
• Monitor and investigate suspicious transactions, and ensure timely and accurate filing of suspicious activity.
• Serve as the officially designated AMLRO, responsible for oversight of the day-to-day AML operations, and as the primary liaison with relevant regulators.

Data Protection Governance:

• Maintain the company’s data protection policies and procedures in accordance with ISO 27001:2022, GDPR, and applicable local privacy laws across Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.
• Conduct DPIAs and maintain accurate records of data processing activities, policies, and incidents.
• Stay up-to-date with changes in data protection laws and best practices, adapting the company policies accordingly.
• Manage data breach investigations, reporting to relevant authorities and affected individuals as required.
• Advisor for new projects, products and technologies, ensuring privacy by design.
• Serve as the primary contact point for data subjects regarding their data protection rights, handling data access requests, rectification, erasure, and objections.
• Serve as the officially appointed Data Protection Supervisor and liaison for data protection authorities across the company’s markets.

Governance and Regulatory Compliance:

• Ensure licensing and Bank of Ghana reporting obligations are met, remaining up-to-date with changes in regulatory landscape.
• Support internal controls, periodic compliance testing, remediation plans and management reporting.
• Deliver quarterly training and awareness programs to employees on compliance topics including AML and data protection principles, policies, and best practices.
• Collaborate with legal, IT, product development, and other departments to embed data protection and AML into all aspects of the business, from loan requests to data analytics.

Qualifications and Experience:

• A Bachelor's degree in Law is preferred, but someone with a degree in a relevant field will be considered. 
• 6+ years of experience in AML, data protection, and compliance roles, preferably within the FinTech or financial services industry.
• Professional certification in Anti-Money Laundering (e.g., CAMS, ICA International Diploma in Anti-Money Laundering).
• Professional certification in data protection (e.g., CDPS, CIPP/E, CIPM, CIPP/A, CIPT, CDPO).
• Strong demonstrable understanding of global standards, laws and regulation for AML and data protection.
• Proven experience in developing and implementing compliance, AML and data protection frameworks, policies, and procedures.
• Proficiency in conducting DPIA, managing data breach incidents, liaising with regulators.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Fluency in French would be highly advantageous.
• Experience working with large-scale data processing systems and technologies.

Company overview:

Ezra provides B2B digital lending solutions for emerging markets in partnership with mobile and digital wallet operators and financial service providers. Ezra supports 24 operations in 23 countries, across Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Our key office locations are in Nairobi, Kenya and Dubai, UAE. 

Our flagship products are Airtime Credit Services (ACS), Nano and BNPL. 

• ACS is an airtime or data advance offered to prepaid mobile subscribers at the point of low credit. 
• Nano is a micro cash advance offered to mobile wallet users on demand. 
• BNPL facilitates payment installments for products and services 

As a FinTech company, our business is entirely technology and data driven, from determining subscriber eligibility, generating relevant offers, managing risk, loan issuance, recovery, optimizing performance and reporting, reconciliation and billing. 

Each day we process approximately 21M loan requests and 1.4 TB of data across our markets. This process needs to be robust, reliable and secure. 

But it doesn’t end there. We’re exploring new ways of using our platform and transactional data to improve our products and develop new product opportunities.