Head of FinCrime Ops EU: "if you only wish - at Revolut - you can fly high"

People · 9 January 2023Karolina Gruszczyk

Working at the Revolut rocketship means nothing is impossible. Like joining a team of 7 in 2017 and now leading more than 2,600 people globally? Not surprising at all.

Meet Kasia Said Nagy – who built the financial crime and compliance teams at Revolut from scratch! She joined in August 2017 as a Risk and Compliance Analyst, and now is our Head of FinCrime Ops EU. Didn’t we mention that nothing is impossible at Revolut?  

Kasia, why is tackling financial crime such an important global issue?

Financial crime is a cross-industrial global issue. Of course, businesses like Revolut - fintech - are an obvious fighter of financial crime, but it might be found everywhere - coffee shops, sports, any industry. Financial crime hurts individuals, families, businesses, and communities, it also affects the global and national economy - yearly financial crimes cost billions of euros.

The biggest issue is that criminals learn our vulnerabilities, as people and societies, and they strive from it - being a victim of financial crime not only means losing money or life savings, it sometimes costs people their freedom, their livelihoods and their health, and it can cost businesses opportunities.

Money can be used to fund crime and terrorism around the world. We aim to eliminate the use of our financial products for facilitating crime or criminals who use them, and finally, we educate and support our customers who need us, to protect and make things easy for them.

People tend to think that financial crime is far beyond them, human trafficking, drug wars, child labour - these issues seem far from day to day life. Yet, we interact with businesses every day without noticing. Financial crime is when a family member gets a scam email, it happens when you’re having your hair done and the hairdresser keeps none of their wages, or you spot a great deal online and your card is reused for other payments. It can look like many things.

What did your career look like at Revolut?

There were 3 people in London and 4 in Krakow (including myself) when I started in 2017. Now FinCrime products and services together have 2,631 employees!

But back then, after four months as a risk and compliance analyst I moved to become a team leader - that was fast and challenging but also very rewarding! I had a team to support but also led feedback between services and products, driving compliance improvements as an additional function. From December 2019 I moved to a higher manager role under FinCrime Services and in September 2021 I moved under the Bank wing for Revolut Bank UAB, as Senior Financial Crime Compliance Manager. More recently, in November 2022 I started a new position at Revolut as a Head of FinCrime Operations Europe.

What are your duties now?

In short, I’m responsible for the first line of defence for the European markets.

Together with the excellent experts that I have the pleasure of working with at Revolut, we’re building, strengthening and driving the entity FinCrime oversight framework, launching new local entities - where my team makes sure that we are compliant with local regulations, and we are incorporating FinCrime controls. We comprehensively overview  AML/ CTF, Fraud, screening and compliance. We’re also driving projects to implement new markets and new products (and there are many new products at Revolut so we’re never bored!)

Revolut puts in a lot of effort to keep our customers safe but we also educate them on how to avoid unpleasant situations  - we do it by launching fraud focused communication campaigns to our app users.

Structures at Revolut

Revolut has a traditional three lines of defence model for financial crime:

1: Financial crime product and services and subject matter experts

2: Risk and Compliance

3: Internal audit

Of course, we have other roles that come hand in hand with risk, regulatory compliance, and regulatory affairs. Our disruptive model is based on how we combat crime. A vital thing is that what takes other players in the industry years, at Revolut it takes a quarter.

What do you like the most about your job?

My role enables me to be a vital part of the financial industry, we’re delivering innovative and well designed solutions and we’re first in terms of client base bank in Lithuania. With over 15 million customers in EEA, we’re taking a lead in industry-wide discussions on how financial services should handle challenges and how our clients shall be protected.

What is the FinCrime career path? At what stage should you start your career in this area and what should you strive for?

Revolut provides a great opportunity to all employees across the risk/compliance/financial crime department to expand their knowledge and grow professionally within functions, as well as to change to different areas based on the skill set of individuals.

FinCrime analysts can grow within their function to a role of Subject Matter Expert / Trainer. If an individual would like to develop managerial skills the path is open to you towards a higher level starting from team lead, followed by production or operation manager where you head up and initiate projects towards Revolut’s vision.

A move to different functions such as regulatory / compliance functions or data, as the company is data driven, is also possible.

Revolut gives a unique opportunity to acquire various skills and experience depending on individual motivation, self-driven approach and interests. Myself, I strongly believe that if you only wish - at Revolut - you can fly high.

Ready to check it out? We've got some open positions in Kasia's team: https://bit.ly/Risk-Compliance-Audit-Revolut

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