Manager, Regulatory Compliance

About Airwallex

Airwallex is the AI-native financial operating system for a real-time, intelligent economy. More than 675,000 businesses, including McLaren Racing, Qantas, SHEIN, and TikTok, use us, directly or through our platform partners, to run their financial operations or build and monetize financial products of their own.

We started in Melbourne in 2015 to build the infrastructure global commerce runs on. We're the regulated backbone behind global payments: not by accident, but by design. A decade plus, 85+ licenses, and a financial infrastructure spanning North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific.

We're co-headquartered in San Francisco and Singapore, with more than 2,700 people across 27 offices. We hire builders with founder-level energy, people who move fast with good judgment, dig in with real curiosity, and make calls from first principles rather than waiting to be told what to do. Read our operating principles to see it in full.

How you'll make impact

As Manager, Regulatory Compliance, US, you’ll deliver Airwallex’s US regulatory engagement strategy and help drive the US State MTL licensing program. You’ll maintain licensing responsibilities and coordinate with internal and external stakeholders to communicate regulatory requirements, develop compliant products and processes, complete required filings, renew registrations and licenses, manage regulatory examinations, and respond to ad hoc inquiries from US regulators.

You'll also analyze new and existing products, guide the business on regulatory obligations, and help ensure that second-line-of-defense controls and first-line processes are fit for purpose.

• Support Airwallex’s expansion by managing the regulatory compliance components of license authorization processes.

• Act as a key stakeholder for license applications, business plan updates, and information requests between Airwallex and regulators.

• Maintain regulatory compliance and integrity risk reporting obligations for Airwallex Group entities in the US region.

• Support and manage on-site examinations and inspections in collaboration with LRC colleagues.

• Advise the business on regulatory change initiatives, with a focus on managing compliance risk associated with new laws and regulations.

• Develop policies and processes and provide advice on regulatory risk obligations within the first-line business.

• Manage regulatory compliance risk within the Airwallex Risk Management Framework and associated escalation processes, including the Group Risk Committee.

• Advise the business on conduct risk and ethics matters relating to financial services licenses, where appropriate.

• Deliver the Compliance Monitoring Program and conduct targeted and thematic reviews to assess organizational maturity.

• Deliver Airwallex Group compliance training and provide ad hoc training to specific business areas as required.

• Conduct proactive special operations projects that help resolve business or operational issues and enable Airwallex to achieve its strategic goals more rapidly.
  
  

You'll work remotely within the US, with New York or San Francisco preferred (hybrid in office Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays).

What we're looking for

Essentials

• A bachelor’s degree and at least six years of regulatory compliance experience in a financial institution, FinTech, legal or consulting firm, or a combination of these.

• Familiarity with financial regulatory laws, rules, regulations, and industry best practices across the US and the Americas.

• The ability to work with data and use it to support strategic decision-making.

• The ability to operate strategically and think creatively when solving complex regulatory compliance challenges.

• Superior communication skills, including the ability to explain complex topics clearly to regulators, executive leadership, and front-line staff.

• Experience developing or maintaining a compliance program within a financial institution, preferably relating to payments activity.

• Exposure to licensing processes, regulatory expansion, and RegTech or technology-driven compliance solutions.

• A deep understanding of financial products and services and related conduct risk, ethics, and controls.
  
  

Preferred

• Experience working with State MTL regulatory authorities and other financial services regulators across the Americas.

• A deep understanding of the NMLS online regulatory portal and associated systems.
  
  

You'll thrive here if

• You’re comfortable with ambiguity. Give you a problem, not a prescription, and you’ll run with it.

• You communicate clearly and directly across cultures, and you’re thoughtful about how context shifts meaning across borders.

• You’re consistently looking to take on new and diverse challenges, expand your knowledge beyond your current areas of expertise, and are comfortable stepping outside your comfort zone to do it.

• You own the outcome and you don’t wait for permission to fix what’s broken.

• You simplify complexity rather than hiding behind it.