Fraud & Financial Crime Manager

Working in our fast paced, successful Underwriting team in our London/Cardiff/Manchester office there has never been a better time to join Pepper Money, a specialist mortgage lender backed by a global financial institution offering first and second charge loans.

We really do believe that it’s our people who are our main competitive advantage – the ‘thing’ that sets us apart from our competitors. 

Our passion is to ‘Help People Succeed’. This is at the heart of everything we do and includes our valued customers, intermediary brokers and partners as well as all of our fantastic colleagues.

What you will be doing 

You’ll lead our Fraud & Financial Crime function, ensuring strong fraud prevention, effective financial crime controls, and compliant customer outcomes across our lending products. You’ll drive improvements, processes, operational performance, manage investigations, and act as the subject matter expert for fraud, AML and financial crime.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead through participation and develop the Fraud & Financial Crime team, ensuring high performance and strong governance.
• Oversee fraud detection, AML checks, due diligence, sanctions/PEP screening and investigation of suspicious cases, taking ownership for third-party monitoring and liaison with regulatory bodies and law enforcement agencies
• Maintain and optimise fraud screening systems (SIRA, Cifas, LexisNexis).
• Manage complex fraud/financial crime investigations and SAR reporting.
• Monitor KPIs, produce MI, and report key trends and risks to senior leadership.
• Conduct financial crime risk assessments, control testing and support audits, regulatory queries, incident planning and MLRO reporting.
• Collaborate with underwriting, servicing, sales, operations, IT and data teams to strengthen controls and implement process improvements.
• Ensure full compliance with FCA, JMLSG, Consumer Duty, GDPR, AML and financial crime regulations.

What we are looking for

We’re looking for an experienced leader with strong fraud and financial crime expertise, excellent regulatory knowledge, and the ability to manage operations, people, reporting and risk in a fastmoving environment.

Skills & Experience

• Extensive experience in fraud prevention, financial crime and AML within financial services.
• Strong knowledge of regulatory requirements (FCA, Consumer Duty, MCOB, GDPR, AML legislation).
• Proficiency with fraud screening tools (SIRA, Cifas, LexisNexis); AI driven AML tools desirable.
• Experience conducting investigations, risk assessments, SARs and responding to audits.
• Strong operational leadership skills, including coaching, performance management and resource planning.
• Analytical mindset with the ability to assess risks, design controls and interpret data trends.
• Understanding of mortgage lending (residential, BTL, second charge) and associated fraud risks balancing business needs with strong customer outcomes.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.

Some of the benefits we provide are: 

• Competitive salaries and bonus schemes
• Hybrid home/office working arrangements
• Regular training and opportunities to learn and grow
• Holiday leave plus bank holidays
• Medical insurance cover
• Life insurance
• Health and wellbeing support

In return for your commitment, you’ll have the chance to develop your career in a dynamic environment, working alongside top talent and an exceptional leadership team. If you want to be involved in our exciting expansion plans and have the chance to really shape and influence the way the business grows, then we’d love to hear from you.

We also want our people to feel a sense of belonging at Pepper Money. We are committed to meeting our Diversity, Equality and Inclusion charter, further information can be found on the Careers section on our website.