Careers at Monek

What you'll own

• Safeguarding (CASS 15): daily reconciliation of safeguarded funds against merchant liabilities, investigating and clearing breaks the same day, the monthly REP027 return, the annual safeguarding audit, and the day-to-day relationship with HSBC as our safeguarding bank
• Settlement and funds flow: daily reconciliation of Worldpay settlement files to merchant payouts, managing scheme rejections, returns and unsettled transactions, and handing a reconciled month-end position to the Finance Manager
• MLRO and SARs: maintaining our AML and CTF policies and procedures, the business-wide risk assessment, periodic AML reviews, internal suspicious activity reporting and SARs to the NCA, the annual MLRO report to the board, staff training, and coordinating the independent external AML review and closing its findings
• Transaction and merchant monitoring: setting and tuning monitoring rules, working the alert queue, reviewing merchant trading against expected volumes, ticket sizes and MCC, and escalating unusual activity
• Underwriting: working with the underwriting team on new merchant onboarding, KYB and KYC, enhanced due diligence on higher-risk sectors, risk scoring and periodic merchant reviews
• Fraud: investigating fraud cases, holding or reserving funds where needed, recovering losses from partners and merchants, and maintaining our template letters for each stage
• Terminations: termination decisions on merchants and partners, the termination letters that go with them, and closing accounts cleanly with the acquirer
• Refunds and chargebacks: owning the refund and chargeback policies and processes, managing disputes, keeping merchants within scheme thresholds, and the REP017 payments fraud report
• Merchant debt: recovering chargeback losses, unpaid fees and terminal lease arrears through to legal escalation, and providing the debt data behind our bad debt provision
• Complaints and Consumer Duty: complaints handling within FCA timescales, FOS referrals, the complaints return, root cause analysis, and leading on Consumer Duty outcomes and monitoring
• FCA reporting and policies: REP017, REP027, complaints returns and FSA056 with the Finance Manager; keeping our FCA policy suite current and aligned with HSBC requirements; running the compliance monitoring programme with our external compliance advisers
• Board reporting: a monthly risk and compliance pack covering safeguarding, alerts, SARs, fraud, chargebacks, complaints and merchant debt

Underwriting decisions above a set risk level need a second sign-off. This keeps first-line decisions separate from your MLRO oversight.

What you'll need

• A background in compliance, financial crime or risk, or as a financial services accountant in regulatory reporting, CASS or client money, or financial services audit, with a solid grounding in AML and CTF, KYC and KYB, and how safeguarding works (essential)
• A compliance mindset: thorough, sceptical, documents everything, and comfortable saying no to a merchant or a transaction when it's the right call (essential)
• ACA, ACCA or CIMA qualified, or an ICA Certificate or equivalent; if you are an accountant without an AML qualification, we will fund the ICA Certificate
• Comfortable working with large datasets in Excel; SQL is a plus

Card acquiring or FCA RegData experience is a real plus. You'll get a full handover and hands-on training on our processes, returns and systems from our outgoing CFO.

Your first 90 days

• Shadow, then take over, the daily safeguarding and settlement reconciliations and the monthly REP027 return, with hands-on handover from our outgoing CFO
• Review the AML and CTF policies, business-wide risk assessment and compliance monitoring programme, and set out what needs updating
• Take ownership of transaction monitoring, including rules, alert queues and open cases
• Agree a monthly risk and compliance MI pack for the board: safeguarding position, alerts, SARs, fraud, chargebacks, complaints and merchant debt
• Agree your path to MLRO appointment and the timetable for the next external AML review

Key relationships

The Chairman, the Finance Manager, our CTO and developers, the underwriting and customer service teams, HSBC as our safeguarding bank, Worldpay, our ISO partners, our external compliance advisers, the external AML reviewer and the FCA.

Why this one is different

This is a step up, and for an accountant a clear route into compliance and MLRO: you'll own the compliance function and be the senior regulatory voice in a small, fast-moving business, with direct access to the board and in-house developers to help automate monitoring and reporting. As we scale, this role grows into a team.

What you'll own

• Month-end close: a timetabled close across four companies on Xero: bank reconciliations, accruals, prepayments, deferred income, intercompany recharges and balances, and consolidation
• Management accounts: monthly P&L, balance sheet and cash flow by company and consolidated, with variance commentary against budget and forecast, and the finance section of the board pack
• Transactional finance: purchase ledger, supplier statement reconciliations, payment runs, expenses and company cards, sales ledger and credit control on non-merchant income
• Payroll: monthly payroll with our provider, payroll reconciliations, pension submissions and P11Ds
• Tax: quarterly VAT returns, corporation tax computations and payments, and R&D tax claims, working with our advisers
• Year-end and audit: statutory accounts under FRS 102 for four companies, the audit timetable and working papers, and supporting US GAAP reporting for our investors
• Balance sheet: fixed asset and intangible registers, capitalised development costs, amortisation and impairment reviews, and monthly balance sheet reconciliations
• Cash: a rolling 13-week cash flow, the weekly cash position, supplier payment planning, creditor management, and keeping the group forecast model up to date
• Regulatory input: own funds and balance sheet figures for the FSA056 capital return, prepared with the Risk and Compliance Manager, and the month-end safeguarding and settlement balances in the ledger
• Budget and forecast: the annual budget process and quarterly reforecasts with the Chairman
• Systems and controls: finishing our move to Xero, owning the group chart of accounts, approval controls, and automating processes with our in-house developers
• People: line managing and developing our accounts assistant, and running the team calendar for monthly and annual deadlines

What you'll need

• ACA, ACCA or CIMA qualified, or part-qualified with strong experience at this level
• Multi-entity experience: intercompany, consolidation and group reporting
• Statutory audit experience, from either the client side or practice
• Strong Xero and Excel; comfortable with high-volume data
• A player-manager who enjoys the detail and wants to own a clean, well-controlled ledger

Payments or financial services experience is a real plus. You'll get a full handover and hands-on training from our outgoing CFO.

Your first 90 days

• Run month-end alongside our outgoing CFO, then own it: Xero across four companies, intercompany and consolidation
• Take over the management accounts and board pack finance section
• Get a rolling 13-week cash flow live and reconciled weekly
• Lead planning for the FY26 year end and audit, including the timetable with our auditors
• Finish the move to Xero and sign off the group chart of accounts

Key relationships

The Chairman, the Risk and Compliance Manager, our accounts assistant, our external auditors and tax advisers, our US investors and their auditors, our banks and lenders, HMRC and key suppliers.

Why this one is different

This is a step up: you'll own the numbers for a growing regulated group, with the controls and structure of a larger business and the pace of a small one. In-house developers will help you automate, and you'll have a direct line to the board.

About the role

You'll find, win and grow partnerships with software vendors (ISVs) and Point of Sale providers across the UK, as well as relationships with larger merchants. Much of your week will be spent face to face, building business on partners' and merchants' premises, with 2 days in our Lichfield office working alongside the UK team.

Who we're looking for

You'll have at least 3 years' experience in partnership or channel sales, with a track record of signing and growing ISV and/or PoS partnerships in the UK. You'll be confident with senior stakeholders, happy to be out on the road, and driven by winning new business.

How you'll grow

As we scale, there's a clear path into senior and leadership roles, and uncapped earning potential for high performers.