Senior Fraud & KYC Specialist

About Zed Zed is building the first AI-native, licensed neobank in the Philippines designed to democratize access to premium financial services for young professionals in global markets. The current banking system is broken, often shutting out the world’s youngest and fastest-growing consumer classes—we’re here to fix it. Our team is uniquely positioned to solve this. We are Stanford engineers and former YC founders who have spent our careers at the intersection of banking and hyper-growth startups like Square, Facebook, and Box. We’ve been here before, having previously built and exited Symple (YC W'17), a fast-growing B2B payments company. We are backed by world-class investors, including Accel, Valar, Immad Akhund (Mercury), Dalton Caldwell (Y Combinator), and Kunal Shah (Cred). THE ROLE Zed is hiring a Senior Fraud & KYC Specialist to help protect our cardholders and business, from customer onboarding through everyday card use. You’ll review identity-verification results, monitor suspicious activity, investigate potential card fraud, and improve the rules and processes we use to detect and prevent it. This is a hands-on individual contributor role combining daily reviews and investigations with ongoing improvements to fraud controls. You’ll work with our Card Operations and Compliance teams, processor, and verification and fraud-prevention vendors to identify risks and reduce unnecessary friction for legitimate customers. The role is primarily back-office, with limited direct customer contact. Our Disputes & Declines Specialist manages cardholder communication and chargeback processing; you investigate suspected fraud and provide clear findings and guidance to support case resolution. WHAT YOU’LL DO - Review customer onboarding: Assess identity documents, liveness and selfie checks, and sanctions and politically exposed person screening results. Identify inconsistencies and request additional verification where needed. - Identify onboarding risks: Look for signs of synthetic identities, altered documents, and potential mule accounts. Escalate high-risk applications and carry out enhanced due diligence in line with company policy. - Monitor suspicious activity: Review daily fraud alerts using processor data and monitoring tools. Take or recommend action on cards and accounts within established policies and approval limits. - Investigate card fraud: Investigate alerts and cases referred by the Disputes & Declines Specialist using authorization, clearing, and other available records. Document the evidence, conclusions, and recommended next steps. - Improve fraud detection: Identify emerging patterns, evaluate rule performance, and work with relevant teams and vendors to tune rules and thresholds through the agreed approval process. - Support Compliance: Prepare investigation records and supporting case files for Compliance’s assessment and regulatory reporting. - Work with vendors: Monitor the performance of identity-verification and fraud-prevention providers, investigate issues, and coordinate improvements. - Report on outcomes: Prepare weekly and monthly reporting on fraud losses, alert volumes, false positives, and KYC outcomes. Explain the patterns and recommend practical actions. - Maintain procedures: Keep fraud and KYC procedures current as tools, threats, and requirements change, coordinating with Compliance where appropriate. WHAT YOU BRING - Bachelor’s degree in any field, with a strong academic background. - At least five years of relevant experience in financial services, including hands-on card-fraud investigation and transaction monitoring. - Experience reviewing KYC and customer due diligence during onboarding. - Proven ability to interpret card authorization and clearing data, investigate suspicious transactions, and document clear conclusions. - Working knowledge of Philippine AML/CTF requirements, customer due diligence, and suspicious transaction reporting. - Experience setting or tuning fraud rules, thresholds, or monitoring scenarios. - Strong analytical skills, including Excel or Google Sheets for investigation and reporting. - Sound judgment: you can act independently within established policies and recognize when a case requires escalation. - Clear written communication and careful handling of confidential customer and financial information. - Comfort learning and using approved AI tools to support analysis, documentation, and process improvement while protecting customer information and applying independent judgment. HELPFUL, BUT NOT REQUIRED - Experience working directly with e-KYC, identity-verification, or fraud-prevention vendors. - Familiarity with multiple card management or fraud-monitoring platforms. - SQL skills or experience using data-analysis tools to investigate fraud patterns. - Experience writing operational procedures. - Experience in a startup or growing fintech. We hire exceptional people from diverse backgrounds because different perspectives build better products. If you’re excited about this role but don’t check every box, apply anyway. We value potential, ownership, and alignment with our values more than perfect résumés. We are an equal opportunity employer and do not discriminate based on legally protected characteristics. We provide reasonable accommodations throughout the hiring process. Compensation includes salary, equity, and benefits. Final offers are based on role scope, location, and experience.