About this role
About us
Tamara is a leading fintech platform in Saudi Arabia and the GCC region with a mission to help people own their dreams built on being simple, trusted, and everywhere our customers need us. Today, more than 25 million customers and over 130,000 partner merchants depend on Tamara every day for reliable financial solutions across retail, travel, education, healthcare, and beyond. Tamara is backed by Sanabil Investments, a wholly owned company of the Public Investment Fund (PIF), and SNB Capital, among others.
Tamara is Saudi’s first fintech unicorn and is backed by Sanabil Investments, SNB Capital, Checkout.com, amongst others, operating out of its headquarters in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia with other regional and global support offices.
About the role
The Money Laundering Reporting Officer (MLRO) oversees the financial crime compliance framework at Tamara, a finance company licensed and regulated by the Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE). Reporting directly to the Head of Compliance, UAE, the MLRO operates as a senior and independent second line control function, supporting the identification, assessment, management, monitoring, and reporting of money laundering, terrorist financing, proliferation financing, targeted financial sanctions, and related financial crime risks across the company.
The role assesses internal suspicious activity referrals, submits Suspicious Transaction Reports (STRs) to the UAE Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) through the approved UAE reporting channels, acts as a key point of contact with the CBUAE and other relevant UAE authorities on financial crime matters, and reports to the Head of Compliance, UAE, Senior Management, and relevant governance forums.
This is a senior position, candidates should have 8 or more years of relevant experience in anti-money laundering (AML), countering the financing of terrorism (CFT), sanctions, or financial crime compliance gained within a regulated financial institution, fintech, finance company, bank, payment service provider, or similar environment, with demonstrated experience engaging with the CBUAE in a comparable financial crime compliance role.
Your responsibilities
Financial crime framework & risk assessments:
• Maintain and oversee the company’s AML, CFT, countering proliferation financing (CPF), targeted financial sanctions, and financial crime compliance framework, ensuring policies, procedures, methodologies, and controls remain aligned with UAE laws, CBUAE requirements, and internal standards.
• Assess the applicability and impact of new or amended UAE AML, CFT, CPF, and sanctions requirements and support the implementation of required changes across the company.
• Lead the company’s institutional money laundering, terrorist financing, and proliferation financing risk assessment, covering risks relating to customers, products, merchants, delivery channels, geographies, technology, outsourcing, and new b