The posting
Job Summary
This role could be based in Singapore and United Kingdom. When you start the application process you will be presented with a drop-down menu showing all countries, please ensure that you select a country where the role is based.
• Provide independent Second Line oversight and credible challenge of financial crime risks arising from digital assets, including sanctions, money laundering, terrorist and proliferation financing, fraud, market abuse, and wider illicit finance risk.
• Set the Group framework, control expectations, and risk appetite for digital asset activities, including custody, stablecoins, tokenised assets, payments and crypto asset-related services.
• Act as the principal Financial Crime Risk adviser and authorised approver for new products, services, client segments, geographies, partnerships, and strategic initiatives.
• Ensure digital asset growth is supported by effective, proportionate and regulator-ready controls across the product lifecycle.
Key Responsibilities
Independent Oversight, Risk Governance and Strategic Advisory
• Provide independent Second Line oversight and challenge across digital asset customer, product, transaction, investigation and control risks; approve material risk assessments, acceptances, waivers, exceptions, and remediation plans within delegated authority.
• Maintain the Group financial crime risk framework for digital assets, setting minimum control standards, advisory ownership, governance, escalation routes, and risk appetite requirements for custody, stablecoins, tokenised assets, blockchain payments, and related services.
• Act as an authorised Financial Crime Risk approver for new digital asset products, services, client segments, geographies, partnerships, and strategic initiatives through relevant governance forums; escalate material concerns and emerging risks to senior management and committees.
• Lead financial crime advisory for digital asset custody, stablecoin issuance and ecosystems, fiat-to-crypto and crypto-to-fiat flows, mint and burn processes, institutional servicing, liquidity, and potential prime services.
Control Effectiveness, Regulatory Leadership and Capability
• Challenge and enhance customer due diligence, transaction monitoring, sanctions screening, Travel Rule compliance, wallet attribution, blockchain analytics and suspicious activity detection; assess direct and indirect exposure to sanctioned or illicit actors, mixers, tumblers and other evasion typologies.
• Independently review control designs, vendor solutions, and blockchain analytics tools, including wallet-screening and crypto intelligence capability; determine where traditional controls are under-calibrated, over-calibrated or unsuitable for decentralised business models.
• Own regulatory horizon scanning and impact assessment across key jurisdictions and standard setters; translate developments into policy, practical guidance, and First Line expectations, and coordinate regulatory enquiries, reviews, consultations, and examinations.
• Develop digital asset financial crime KRIs, KPIs, risk appetite metrics and management information, report material exposures, control effectiveness, investigations, emerging risks and remediation progress to senior stakeholders and governance forums.
• Build sustainable Second Line capability through training, playbooks, guidance, coaching, and knowledge transfer; represent Financial Crime Risk in digital asset, stablecoin, custody, surveillance and crypto governance forums.
Stakeholder Leadership
• Operate as a senior individual contributor and trusted adviser, setting direction through influence across Financial Crime, Compliance, Operational Risk, Technology, Product, Business, and regional teams.
• Provide specialist coaching and constructive challenge, creating clear accountability for decisions and sustainable ownership of digital asset risks and controls.
• Role-model sound judgement, intellectual curiosity, collaboration, and strong conduct while balancing innovation with regulatory expectations and risk appetite.
Motivations
• Motivated by protecting the Bank while enabling responsible innovation in digital assets and blockchain-based financial services.
• Energised by solving complex, ambiguous and rapidly evolving financial crime risk problems where established control models may not readily apply.
• Driven to provide independent, evidence-based challenge and make clear risk decisions under senior scrutiny.
• Thrives in multidisciplinary environments requiring collaboration across Product, Technology, Compliance, Risk, Operations, and regional teams.
• Motivated by translating regulatory change and technical blockchain concepts into practical, scalable control expectations.
• Committed to building durable organisational capability, reducing key-person dependency, and raising standards across the Second Line.
Our Ideal Candidate
• 10+ years of significant experience in senior Financial Crime Risk, Compliance or equivalent Second Line roles within a complex, regulated financial institution.
• Demonstrable expertise in digital asset, crypto asset, stablecoin, custody, tokenisation or blockchain-related financial crime risks and controls.
• Strong track record of independent challenge, risk acceptance, product approval, policy development and engagement with senior governance forums.
• Practical experience assessing blockchain analytics, wallet screening, transaction monitoring, sanctions exposure, Travel Rule compliance and illicit finance typologies.
• Experience interpreting cross-border regulatory requirements and engaging regulators, industry bodies, or external stakeholders.
• Ability to communicate complex technical and regulatory matters clearly to both specialist and non-specialist audiences.
Certifications / Qualifications
• No mandatory certification. Relevant professional qualifications in financial crime, compliance, sanctions, risk, law, audit or digital assets are desirable.
Role Specific Technical Competencies
Must-have Skills
• Digital Asset Financial Crime Risk
• Financial Crime Risk Governance and Independent Challenge
• Sanctions, AML, CTF and Proliferation Financing
• Blockchain Analytics, Wallet Screening and Transaction Monitoring
• Digital Asset Product Risk Assessment and Approval
Other Skills
• Regulatory Horizon Scanning and Engagement
• Control Design and Effectiveness Assessment
• Risk Appetite, Management Information and Executive Reporting
• Strategic Influence, Stakeholder Management and Capability Building
About Standard Chartered
We're an international bank, nimble enough to act, big enough for impact. For more than 170 years, we've worked to make a positive difference for our clients, communities, and each other. We question the status quo, love a challenge and enjoy finding new opportunities to grow and do better than before. If you're looking for a career with purpose and you want to work for a bank making a difference, we want to hear from you. You can count on us to celebrate your unique talents and we can't wait to see the talents you can bring us.
Our purpose, to drive commerce and prosperity through our unique diversity, together with our brand promise, to be here for good are achieved by how we each live our valued behaviours. When you work with us, you'll see how we value difference and advocate inclusion.
Together we:
• Do the right thing and are assertive, challenge one another, and live with integrity, while putting the client at the heart of what we do
• Never settle, continuously striving to improve and innovate, keeping things simple and learning from doing well, and not so well
• Are better together, we can be ourselves, be inclusive, see more good in others, and work collectively to build for the long term
What we offer
In line with our Fair Pay Charter, we offer a competitive salary and benefits to support your mental, physical, financial and social wellbeing.
• Core bank funding for retirement savings, medical and life insurance, with flexible and voluntary benefits available in some locations.
• Time-off including annual leave, parental/maternity (20 weeks), sabbatical (12 months maximum) and volunteering leave (3 days), along with minimum global standards for annual and public holiday, which is combined to 30 days minimum.
• Flexible working options based around home and office locations, with flexible working patterns.
• Proactive wellbeing support through Unmind, a market-leading digital wellbeing platform, development courses for resilience and other human skills, global Employee Assistance Programme, sick leave, mental health first-aiders and all sorts of self-help toolkits
• A continuous learning culture to support your growth, with opportunities to reskill and upskill and access to physical, virtual and digital learning.
• Being part of an inclusive and values driven organisation, one that embraces and celebrates our unique diversity, across our teams, business functions and geographies - everyone feels respected and can realise their full potential.
Recruitment Assessments
Some of our roles use assessments to help us understand how suitable you are for the role you've applied to. If you are invited to take an assessment, this is great news. It means your application has progressed to an important stage of our recruitment process.
Visit our careers website www.sc.com/careers
