Head of Finance (PCF 11) & Head of Safeguarding (PCF 56)

Job description

## Who we are: TrueLayer is Europe’s fastest-growing Pay by Bank network. We power smarter, safer and faster payments by combining real-time bank payments with financial and identity data. E-commerce, iGaming and Financial Services businesses use our products to onboard new users, accept money and make payouts in seconds, and at scale. Live across 22 countries and with 1 new user joining TrueLayer’s Pay by Bank network every 3 seconds, we’re in a very exciting growth stage. This is why we’re expanding the team across our offices in London, Milan, and Dublin. Listed in Sifted as one of the 100 fastest growing start-ups in UK & Ireland, and CNBC’s World Top Fintech Companies, we’re trusted by industry leaders like RyanAir and Just Eat Takeaway for continued innovation within our payment products. To date, we’ve raised over $300 million from world-renowned investors including Stripe, Tiger Global, Northzone, and Tencent. But this is just the beginning. We’re looking for people who are excited about joining the Pay by Bank revolution and helping us change the way the world pays. Could this be you? **Description** The Head of Finance (PCF-11) holds overall responsibility for the financial resources, financial reporting, and safeguarding (including PCF-56 responsibility) of customer funds for TrueLayer (Ireland) Limited (TIL), reporting on these matters to the TIL Board whilst reporting to the Group VP of Finance on a day to day basis. This is a senior, semi stand-alone role for someone who wants genuine ownership of the finance and safeguarding agenda for a regulated entity, while being supported by TrueLayer's centralised Group Finance team for transactional finance support. You will be the face of finance for TIL: the named PCF holder accountable to the Central Bank of Ireland, the person the Board, auditors, and regulator turn to for assurance on the numbers and on safeguarding, and a hands-on operator who is comfortable rolling up their sleeves when needed in a lean, scaling environment. You will be expected to actively develop and champion the use of AI tools (such as TrueLayer's Dust platform) to drive efficiency in this role, automating routine reconciliation, reporting, and audit-evidence tasks so that your time is focused on judgement, oversight, and regulatory accountability. **What we expect from you as a Head of Finance (PCF 11) and Head of Safeguarding (PCF 56):** - **Regulatory accountability** (PCF-11) - Hold the PCF-11 Head of Finance function for TIL, meeting the Central Bank of Ireland’s Fitness & Probity standards on an ongoing basis (annual F&P self-certification, conduct standards attestation, and cooperation with CBI engagement as required). - Act as a credible, transparent point of contact for the CBI on finance and safeguarding matters, supporting the Head of Compliance and MLRO on joint regulatory engagements where relevant. - Maintain personal and professional standards consistent with the CBI’s Conduct Standards and Individual Accountability Framework (IAF/SEAR). - **Safeguarding** (PCF 56) - Own end-to-end responsibility for the safeguarding of customer funds in line with TIL's Safeguarding Policy and the European Union (Payment Services) Regulations. - Oversee daily internal and external safeguarding reconciliations, ensuring funds that should be segregated are segregated and that TIL's own funds are never commingled with customer money. - Be an active participant in the relationship with safeguarding banking partners (e.g. ClearBank), including acknowledgement letters, account structures, and authorised signer arrangements. - Act as the business owner for the annual internal safeguarding audit of TIL and coordinate any external safeguarding audit commissioned by, or in anticipation of, CBI expectations. - Escalate promptly to the Board and CBI (via appropriate channels) in the event of any safeguarding shortfall, breach, or control weakness. - **Financial reporting and control** - Own TIL’s statutory financial statements, management accounts, and Board financial reporting, ensuring accuracy, timeliness, and audit-readiness at all times. - Lead the annual Financial Statement Audit and act as primary liaison for external auditors, managing the audit timetable, evidence requests, and remediation of findings. - Maintain robust financial controls and policies appropriate to a regulated payments entity, including expense, procurement, and approval frameworks. - Prepare and present financial and safeguarding reporting to the TIL Board, Audit Committee, and relevant Group stakeholders. - **Regulatory and prudential reporting** - Own TIL’s regulatory reporting calendar to the CBI (e.g. prudential/capital returns, safeguarding returns, and other periodic submissions), ensuring accuracy and on-time filing. - Monitor TIL’s capital and liquidity position against regulatory requirements, escalating any emerging risk to the Board in good time. - Keep abreast of regulatory developments affecting finance and safeguarding (e.g. PSD2/PSD3, CBI guidance updates) and advise the Board on operational implications. - **Business partnering and hands-on delivery** - Act as the local finance lead for TIL, working closely with the Group CFO function, FP&A, and the Dublin leadership team on budgeting, forecasting, and business performance. - Work with the centralised Group Finance team for support on payments processing, bookkeeping, payroll, and supplier/customer queries, while remaining personally accountable for outcomes. - Bring a hands-on approach to this stand-alone, senior role: a willingness to get into the detail (reconciliations, reporting, audit evidence) alongside setting strategy is essential. - Support internal and external audits beyond financial statements where finance input is required (e.g. SOC 2, ISMS/ISO 27001, GRC) in coordination with Risk and Compliance. - **AI-driven efficiency** - Actively develop your own and the team’s use of AI tools (including TrueLayer’s Dust platform) to increase the efficiency of finance and safeguarding processes, rather than relying solely on manual, spreadsheet-based approaches. - Identify repetitive or high-volume finance tasks (e.g. daily safeguarding reconciliations, regulatory return preparation, audit evidence collation, Board reporting packs) that are strong candidates for AI-assisted automation, and work with the Group Finance and AI/Dust teams to build and roll out solutions. - Maintain appropriate human oversight and control validation over any AI-assisted process, ensuring outputs remain accurate, auditable, and compliant with CBI expectations and TIL’s risk appetite. **About you:** - You have previously held a Pre-Approval Controlled Function (ideally PCF-11 or an equivalent senior finance/regulatory role) and understand what the CBI’s Fitness & Probity regime requires of you personally, not just of the firm. - Qualified accountant (ACA/ACCA/CIMA or equivalent) with strong technical grounding in financial reporting, statutory accounts, and audit management, ideally gained in a regulated financial services, payments, or fintech environment. - Practical experience of client asset or safeguarding regimes (e.g. CASS, EU Payment Services Regulations) including reconciliation controls, banking relationships, and audit requirements. - You enjoy owning a function end-to-end in a lean set-up, balancing strategic Board-level reporting with hands-on delivery, and know when to lean on the centralised finance team versus when to do it yourself. - Confident presenting to Boards and Audit Committees, engaging directly with external auditors and the CBI, and partnering with Group functions (Compliance, Risk, MLRO, FP&A) based in London and Milan. - Meeting the CBI’s suitability requirements and being approved by the CBI for a PCF role is a mandatory requirement of this role. **We would be particularly excited if you have:** - A growth mindset suited to a scaling business, with a track record of building and improving processes rather than expecting them to be fully formed. - AI fluency and curiosity: experience using AI tools in day-to-day work, with prior experience introducing or championing AI-driven process improvement. - An interest in being the hands-on owner of finance and safeguarding for a single entity, rather than managing a large, multi-layered team. **What you can expect from us:** - Meaningful equity in the company 💰 - Flexible hours and hybrid working, spending 2-3 days per week in our welcoming Dublin 🇮🇪 office. - Need to collect the kids from childcare? Love a workout in the gym first thing? No worries, we trust you to do your best work within our hybrid framework 🧘 - 24 days holiday as standard ✈️ with flexible bank holidays, so you can take those days whenever you like 🌍 - 12 fully-paid wellbeing days a year and your birthday off (on top of the holiday allowance) 🕊️ - 2 volunteering days to support causes important to you - Life Cover as part of our benefits package, offering financial protection and peace of mind for you and your loved ones 🛟 - 90 day ‘work from abroad’ policy 👩‍💻☀️ - Generous parental leave, above and beyond statutory requirements 👪 - Competitive pension contribution at 4% & 4% 🧓 - Private health insurance from the day you start 🧑‍⚕️ - Membership of mental wellbeing platform Spill and premium Calm subscription - A €1000 budget to spend on learning & development each year 📚 - Free lunch from Just Eat 🥙 up to 3 days a week when you are in the office At TrueLayer, we don’t just do inclusion and diversity. We embrace people that have different opinions, perspectives and personalities. Because we believe that by seeing the world from all sorts of angles, we can make life better for all the people who live in it. We strongly encourage applications from underrepresented groups (e.g. people of colour, the LGBTQ+ community, people with disabilities, neurodivergent people, parents, carers, and people from all socio-economic backgrounds). If you’d like to discuss alternative working patterns, please let us know. We will always aim to make appropriate adjustments to ensure we are fully inclusive to people with different needs during our interview process. So if you need us to make any adjustments to suit your individual needs please let us know - we’ll be happy to support you.