Compliance Officer

Compliance Officer

Dubai or Remote (UAE / UK / Europe hours) • Full-Time

SellAbroad is a global commerce platform helping DTC brands scale internationally with localized storefronts, local payment methods, and 2–3 day delivery across GCC and global markets.

We are backed by the world's largest investors like Antler.co, Angel Spark and etc.

About the Role

SellAbroad is a Merchant of Record platform for cross-border e-commerce. We buy from vetted supplier brands and resell to consumers worldwide in our own name — which means we carry checkout, payments, taxes, refunds, chargebacks and customer protection as the seller of record.

Our operating company is in Dubai (In5 Tech, Dubai Internet City). We process eight-figure annualised volume, growing quickly, and we work directly with tier-1 international acquiring banks and payment institutions.

About the role

This is our first dedicated compliance hire, reporting to the CEO.

The function already exists and works: documented policies, a structured merchant-KYC rubric, monitoring programs, and live acquirer relationships. You are not starting from a blank page. Your job is to own it, run it properly, and mature it.

You will be the named Compliance Officer our banking and acquiring partners deal with. Your analysis and your writing go directly to bank compliance teams — which is why judgement and precision matter here more than in most compliance roles.

What you'll own

Merchant due diligence (KYC / EDD)

• Run the supplier and merchant onboarding review queue against our rubric
• Entity verification, beneficial ownership and ID checks, financial standing, storefront and URL review
• Sanctions screening, and accept or decline verdicts with documented reasoning
• Periodic re-reviews and file refresh

Acquirer and bank due diligence

• Own responses to acquirer and bank EDD questionnaires and AML questionnaires
• Prepare and maintain due-diligence document packs
• Host onsite compliance visits
• Keep our external representations accurate and consistent across every partner

AML and sanctions

• Own the AML/KYC policy as a living document
• Make sure sanctions and watchlist screening (OFAC, UN, EU, UK) actually runs on schedule
• Investigate and escalate unusual activity
• Maintain records to partner-audit standard

Transaction and merchant monitoring

• Storefront re-screening cadence, and fulfilment and tracking compliance
• Refund and dispute-rate tracking per merchant
• Chargeback threshold enforcement — payment holds and offboarding
• Roll out card-network dispute-alert programs (Ethoca, Verifi)

Card-scheme compliance

• Track Visa and Mastercard rule and threshold changes, including dispute-ratio programs
• Translate them into operational requirements before they become problems

Tax-compliance coordination

• Coordinate our tax-compliance stack and external tax advisors
• Track registration thresholds and status by jurisdiction (US states, Canada, UK/EU), resale certificates, and remittance evidence for partners
• You drive and track this. Filings and tax advice stay with external specialists — you are not preparing returns

Requirements

• 4–8 years in payments compliance on the provider side — merchant underwriting, onboarding, EDD or risk at a PSP, acquirer, payment facilitator, or MoR platform
• You should know what an acquirer's EDD team wants before they ask for it
• Hands-on merchant KYC/KYB experience: you have personally reviewed files and made accept and decline calls, not only managed a queue
• Working knowledge of card-scheme rules — chargeback and dispute programs, prohibited merchant categories, registration requirements
• Excellent written English. Your writing goes straight to bank compliance teams; register and precision matter as much as substance
• High discretion, and sound judgement about what should and should not go in writing externally
• Able to work UAE / UK / Europe hours, and to be at our Dubai office occasionally for partner visits

Strong pluses

• CAMS or ICA certification
• Experience at or with UAE or UK regulated payment institutions
• E-commerce or marketplace-adjacent risk experience
• Familiarity with sales tax and VAT compliance tooling

Not required

• A law degree
• A team behind you. There isn't one. This role is for an operator who does the work

How we hire

After an initial screen, the core stage is a work-sample task: you'll receive three anonymised merchant KYC packs and return written verdicts with your reasoning within 48 hours. We're looking at what you catch, how you reason, and how you write.

After that, a deep-dive with the CEO on a real, sanitised acquirer EDD questionnaire — how you'd answer each ask, and what you would decline to put in writing.

What success looks like at 90 days

• You own the merchant KYC queue end to end, with documented verdicts and no backlog
• You have taken over all live acquirer and bank due-diligence correspondence and document packs
• Sanctions screening and storefront re-screening run on a documented cadence, with evidence
• Chargeback threshold enforcement operates automatically, with monthly reporting to the CEO
• You have hosted, or are ready to host, a partner onsite visit unassisted

What we offer

• Direct reporting line to the CEO, and real ownership of the function
• A seat at the table with tier-1 acquiring banks and payment institutions
• A compliance function you shape, in a business where it directly protects revenue
• Paid in USD