Financial Crimes Strategist

As the Financial Crimes Strategist within the Transaction Monitoring and Financial Crimes team at TabaPay, you will support the ongoing monitoring, investigation, and analysis of transactional activity across TabaPay’s payment ecosystem. This role is responsible for reviewing and dispositioning transaction monitoring alerts, identifying suspicious or unusual activity, supporting monitoring rule optimization efforts, and contributing to the overall effectiveness of TabaPay’s financial crimes monitoring program. 

The Financial Crimes Strategist will work closely with Product, Compliance, Engineering, Operations, and sponsor bank partners to support monitoring operations, improve alerting strategies, and strengthen real-time fraud and financial crime detection capabilities. This role is ideal for someone with strong analytical and investigative skills who thrives in a fast-paced payments environment. 

This position reports to the Manager of Fraud and Risk, Transaction Monitoring and Financial Crimes within the Compliance organization. 

This role focuses specifically on transaction monitoring operations, alert investigations, monitoring governance, and monitoring effectiveness activities within the Financial Crimes organization. Merchant fraud strategy, chargeback operations, dispute management, and client fraud control reviews are managed separately by the Fraud Risk & Chargebacks team. 

What You’ll Do 

• Review, investigate, and disposition transaction monitoring and AML-related alerts across card, ACH, RTP, and other payment channels. 

• Conduct investigations into suspicious or unusual transactional activity and escalate concerns in accordance with internal procedures and regulatory expectations. 

• Manage daily monitoring queues and support timely alert review and investigation completion within established operational SLAs. 

• Prioritize high-risk alerts, suspicious activity escalations, and operational monitoring concerns based on severity and business impact. 

• Support the tuning, testing, validation, and optimization of transaction monitoring rules and alerting strategies. 

• Participate in rule lifecycle management activities including testing, deployment support, post-implementation monitoring, and monitoring effectiveness reviews. 

• Analyze transactional activity, customer behavior, and operational trends to identify emerging fraud, money laundering, or suspicious activity patterns. 

• Assist with monitoring effectiveness reviews, false positive reduction efforts, and operational process improvements. 

• Maintain detailed and well-documented investigative records, audit trails, and case management documentation. 

• Collaborate with Product and Engineering teams on monitoring enhancements, operational feedback, and monitoring strategy improvements. 

• Support real-time transaction monitoring initiatives and monitoring strategy enhancements across evolving payment products and services. 

• Assist with sponsor bank inquiries, audit requests, examination support, and monitoring-related reporting obligations. 

• Support monitoring activities associated with sponsor bank requirements, network expectations, and internal risk standards. 

• Assist with root cause analysis and trend reporting related to suspicious activity, fraud trends, transaction anomalies, and operational monitoring concerns. 

• Monitor and report on alert volumes, escalation trends, false positive rates, and monitoring performance metrics. 

• Contribute to process documentation, monitoring procedures, investigation playbooks, and operational standards. 

• Participate in cross-functional discussions regarding monitoring operations, monitoring governance, and fraud prevention enhancements. 

What We Are Looking For 

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience in fraud risk, AML, financial crimes, transaction monitoring, or payments operations. 

• 3+ years of experience in transaction monitoring, AML investigations, fraud investigations, or financial crimes operations. 

• Experience working within payments, fintech, banking, acquiring, or money movement environments. 

• Strong analytical and investigative skills with the ability to identify suspicious activity patterns and operational risks. 

• Familiarity with transaction monitoring systems, alerting platforms, and case management tools. 

• Understanding of payment rails including card payments, ACH, RTP, and related fraud or money laundering typologies. 

• Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to clearly document investigative findings and escalation recommendations. 

• Ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced operational environment. 

• Proficiency in Microsoft Excel and data analysis tools. 

• Experience partnering cross-functionally with Product, Compliance, Engineering, Operations, or Risk teams. 

Preferred Qualifications 

• Experience working with transaction monitoring or fraud platforms such as DataVisor or similar systems. 

• Familiarity with BSA/AML requirements, suspicious activity investigations, and sponsor bank oversight expectations. 

• Experience supporting transaction monitoring rule tuning, alert optimization, or monitoring strategy enhancements. 

• Knowledge of fraud and financial crime typologies including account takeover, synthetic identity fraud, mule activity, payment fraud, and money laundering risks. 

• Experience with SQL, Tableau, Looker, or similar reporting and analytics platforms preferred. 

• Experience within a processor, acquiring processor, fintech, banking, or payments environment preferred. 

Why Join TabaPay 

At TabaPay, you will have the opportunity to help shape and enhance transaction monitoring and fraud prevention strategies within a fast-paced and evolving payments environment. You’ll work alongside collaborative teams focused on innovation, operational excellence, and protecting the integrity of the payments ecosystem.