Financial Crime Compliance Specialist

About The Position

As a Financial Crime Compliance Specialist at Klarna, you will play a crucial role in strengthening the company’s financial crime controls. This involves providing independent, risk-based oversight of the Anti-Money Laundering (AML) framework within the Second Line Compliance function. You will leverage sound regulatory judgment across key AML activities, including the review and approval of Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) under MLRO delegation, while collaborating closely with AML Operations, MLROs, and senior Compliance stakeholders.

As Klarna enhances its AML operating model, you will initially contribute hands-on to critical regulatory tasks and gradually transition towards analytical oversight of control design, effectiveness, and outcomes across various products and markets. Your efforts will ensure that AML risks are well understood, appropriately mitigated, and clearly evidenced for regulators.

What You Will Do

• Review and approve Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) under MLRO delegation to ensure all regulatory thresholds are met.
• Evaluate investigations and SAR narratives for quality, completeness, and defensibility.
• Provide constructive feedback to AML investigation teams regarding investigation quality and SAR narratives.
• Identify complex or sensitive cases that require escalation to MLROs.
• Perform second-line oversight of AML controls, with a particular focus on Transaction Monitoring effectiveness.
• Conduct thematic reviews across SAR outcomes, escalation decisions, and various typologies.
• Assess whether AML risks are adequately covered across all products and customer segments.
• Contribute AML input for new product introductions, material changes, and control enhancements.
• Analyze AML metrics and trends to pinpoint control gaps, emerging risks, or performance degradation.
• Support governance, documentation, and the clear separation of responsibilities among AML teams.

Who You Are

• Possess significant experience in AML, financial crime, or compliance within a regulated financial institution (e.g., bank, fintech, payments company, or equivalent).
• Have strong hands-on experience with SAR processes, including drafting, review, approval support, or filing, along with a thorough understanding of applicable regulatory thresholds.
• Demonstrated understanding of AML risk typologies, escalation criteria, and practical application of regulatory expectations.
• Proven ability to exercise independent judgment in complex, sensitive, or ambiguous cases.
• Experience in reviewing the quality, completeness, and defensibility of investigations and regulatory narratives.
• Excellent written communication skills, especially in producing or reviewing clear, structured SAR narratives and regulatory explanations.

Awesome to Have

• Experience working in, or closely with, a second line of defense, compliance oversight, quality assurance, or risk function.
• Exposure to transaction monitoring frameworks, scenario-based monitoring, or assessment of transaction monitoring effectiveness.
• Experience supporting MLROs, acting under MLRO delegation, or preparing materials for MLRO decision-making and escalation.
• Experience performing thematic reviews, trend analysis, or control effectiveness assessments.
• Familiarity with EU and US AML regulatory frameworks and supervisory expectations, including FIU processes and relevant regulatory guidelines.
• Experience contributing to new product risk assessments, regulatory change implementation, or control enhancements.

Key skills/competency

• Financial Crime Compliance
• Anti-Money Laundering (AML)
• Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs)
• Regulatory Oversight
• Transaction Monitoring
• Risk Assessment
• Compliance Frameworks
• Regulatory Reporting
• Investigations Quality
• Stakeholder Collaboration