India Expansion Lead

We’re looking for an India Expansion Lead to help support our expansion plans in India. This is a unique and exciting pioneering opportunity to help  grow Wise in India, allowing millions more potential customers to save money by using our services.

This is not your typical business development or  relationship role. Over time, you will have full responsibility for overseeing our financial services partnerships, figuring out a new market entry strategy and executing on it, and managing critical relationships with government departments, regulators and banking partners. Through your work, you will have the ability to directly influence our product capabilities for the region.

What will you be doing?

• Identify the most appropriate way to grow Wise in India. If we need licences, you will need to manage the process end-to-end: understand the regulations, prepare, coordinate and submit the application, and get the regulatory buy-in.
• Prepare and coordinate documents and applications (i.e. manuals, business plans, forecasts, contracts), as well as support the fulfilment of any other local requirements for the licence applications or any approvals required for launching our products
• Work with the product team to prioritise new market launches, potential product changes and new features in India that would have the biggest impact for our customers. You will be one of the product team’s go-to people for regulatory knowledge, and will lead the early stages of setting the team up with the new product features.
• Build and maintain strong partnerships with financial institutions (banks, payment companies, card schemes) in India. You will lead commercial negotiations, pitch Wise as a client, complete due diligence processes, maintain strong and active relationships with partners, and ensure the technical teams have what they need to integrate with the partners.
• Together with the compliance team, understand existing and new regulations, figuring out the best way in which our product and setup are compliant with them. We see regulation as an opportunity, and we want you to help us achieve that vision! 
• Manage the relationship with regulators and other important non-commercial relationships, such as with government departments.

A bit about you:

• Experience in FinTech, payments or regulation
• Able to get stuff done. Not afraid to get your hands dirty to deliver what is needed. Bonus points if you have completed a license application in a highly regulated industry in the past. 
• Experience of building business relationships with financial institutions in India, and dealing with risk/compliance teams within these institutions.
• Able to understand financial, payments and FX regulations in a changing regulatory environment in India and have an interest in AML/KYC and risk controls.
• Ability to think out of the box for launching various products and services 
• An analytical thinker. You have the ability to figure out the ideal operational and commercial process with every new country / partner
• Excellent at managing external relationships (regulators and financial institutions)
• Able to understand regulations across various jurisdictions, and make pragmatic, risk-based decisions on how these need to be implemented
• Happy to work independently, and being a self starter
• Passionate about transforming the financial industry for good
• You are willing to travel to Singapore or to our offices in Europe when needed

Your mission:

• New market entry - Identify the most appropriate way to launch TransferWise in India,  then roll up your sleeves and make it happen. If we need a licence, you will need to execute the process end-to-end: understand the regulations, do the application and get the regulatory buy-in.
• Financial services partnerships - Maintain and improve relationships with financial institutions (banks, payment companies, card schemes) and lead commercial negotiations to drive down costs. You will monitor our economics to ensure that our service is competitive; if needed, onboard new Financial Institution partners.
• Strategic initiatives related to international expansion - You will identify new / relevant local ways to benefit customers (such as a new local payment method or a new product feature) and implement it. You will also grow our new product offerings by identifying and pitching to relevant businesses in your target markets.
• Understanding how our product works will be key to finding these new opportunities.

This role will give you the opportunity to:

• Choose your own path to success - you’ll have the freedom to define the vision and the responsibility for making it happen
• Gain international exposure -  you will work with our teams in offices around the world as well as meet with regulators and partners across APAC
• Be a part of starting something new by helping launch Wise in a new market 

We’re people without borders — without judgement or prejudice, too. We want to work with the best people, no matter their background. So if you’re passionate about learning new things and keen to join our mission, you’ll fit right in.

Also, qualifications aren’t that important to us. If you’ve got great experience, and you’re great at articulating your thinking, we’d like to hear from you.

And because we believe that diverse teams build better products, we’d especially love to hear from you if you’re from an under-represented demographic.

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