Discover How a Small Team on a Tight Budget Can Responsibly Manage FinTech Compliance
without working longer, braking laws or ignoring risks!
They all operate in the same environment, get almost the same level of seed investments, graduate from the same incubators, are subject to similar regulations, and face the same competition. What is it that those successful few FinTech have figured out?
- If you are a FinTech startup CEOÂ
- struggling to allocate limited resources between marketing, regulatory consultants, or hiring more engineers…and you feel you are the only one who can push back or fight with your compliance team because they are too conservative and prefer to say "no"...
- unable to focus on growing your business because you are constantly writing long explanations to your regulators, auditors, bankers, and other financial partners who continuously threaten to shut you down or cut you off… and you don’t know how would anyone ever be able to satisfy their demands…
- your compliance is getting more expensive and slower by the day and you simply cannot afford to hire more people to do what needs to be done...
- and you don't know which regulatory risks are real and should be avoided and which ones are imaginary and can be tolerated...Â
... or...
- If you are a FinTech Compliance leader, CCO or MLRO and
- you and your team work very long hours, constantly struggling to secure resources;
- you prepare very detailed, well researched reports, gap analysis summaries or risk assessments, but very few of your recommendations get implemented;
- you feel unappreciated and often excluded from important business decisions until the very last minute...
you both have finally come to the right place!
WHY COMPLIANCE IS SO HARD TO SCALE?
Despite all the free content, advice, and paid seminars on every single compliance topic imaginable, why is it that most startups, their founders, and their compliance teams continue to struggle and don’t know what to do?
In over a decade of working in FinTech compliance, I came to believe that the majority of FinTech leaders don’t realize that all they need to do is to do the right things at the right time, or, in other words, shift from "just in case" expensive compliance to "just in time" agile compliance. The simplest and most logical way to do it is to manage your compliance department as a revenue-center (as opposed to cost center) and apply ROI method to assess all future investments into compliance.Â
If you are a FinTech Founder or a CEO, what you want is to build and grow a uniquely successful business, to have more customers, to be a global leader, and to prepare and execute a successful exit. You want to launch new products, eliminate your competition, and raise more funds. AND – you want to do all of the above with clarity and confidence about not breaking the laws and never worrying about compliance (ideally – never spend any money or time on compliance). You want your compliance to be effortless and invisible (and in the perfect word – free), right?
When all of that happens, you will feel like you've changed the industry and you are the next Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, and you will have a sense of accomplishment and a true validation of your exceptional leadership and visionary skills.
Your little "problem" is that to launch anything in FinTech you need TONS of approvals, licenses, permissions, and audits. Your regulators, banks, and partners rely on compliance information, documentation, and policies much more than they rely on your financial projections, market research, or your innovative technology. Investors, regulators, and banks often want to know if the thing you are doing is legit before they ask when it will become profitable.
As a business leader, you want to find the right trade-off between growth and respecting the law, you want to know where you can take risks or fix things later, and if you are like many other struggling FinTech entrepreneurs, you probably realize that your current compliance cost and the speed of the business growth are not sustainable over time.
The good news is that most compliance experts have the same goal: they would like to work for successful and fast-growing companies, they would like customers to be happy, they would like operational processes to be simple and sensible!
The “just in time” or “agile” approach to compliance and ROI approach to assessing compliance initiatives is the fastest, most objective and most resource-efficient way to scale your FinTech, launch innovative products, and keep customers happy.
The reason why your company may be stuck with perceived compliance inefficiencies and possibly compounding risks is that you never did the exercise of assessing investments into compliance using the ROI method (which is what you normally do for investments into sales or marketing), you never tried to quantify the actual benefits of investing into certain compliance processes.
The old-fashioned compliance argument “it needs to be done because it is required by law” is not useful. It probably feels to you like having to pay taxes, which makes you want to minimize and delay it as long as possible (which is honestly just kicking the problem down the road).
How to bridge this gap between compliance and business?
Don’t worry. I have helped hundreds of FinTech founders and CEOs implement the ROI method for managing compliance function as a revenue center, which will accelerate the speed of your decisions, reduce the number of risks you are trying to manage and significantly simplify the documentation and operational efforts .
So, if you are no longer satisfied with the old-fashioned ways of implementing compliance, and are ready to implement “just in time” agile principles within your FinTech that will FINALLY help you scale, you can get a complete implementation roadmap for all areas of your compliance function RIGHT NOW!
One of the foundational principles of this approach is that you will have to manage compliance proposals and projects in a same way as you assess and evaluate sales or business development project, using the ROI method.
FinTech Compliance Self-Starter program is not just a few tactical hints, but a comprehensive implementation blueprint including everything you need to set up and manage compliance function within your FinTech or Crypto startup: from assessing and optimizing your customer onboarding flow, managing license applications, designing efficient “just in time” compliance processes, preparing for and successfully completing audits and regulatory inspections, to learning how to responsibly allocate your limited resources between hiring employees versus external help versus investing into tools and automation at the right time.
Plus – as a bonus – you will receive instant access to over 40+ compliance templates (continuously updated), SOPs, T&Cs, checklists, policy examples, and even a sample license application document to save you valuable time and help you focus on growing your business, building the team and keeping your partners and customers happy.
One of the worst possible compliance mistakes is starting from scratch instead of re-using what works for others.
This program also includes an option for one of your team members to complete our very unique certification program that will equip you with everything you need to set up and manage an adequate compliance program within your startup.Â
So
- If you see that the status quo is not sustainable,
- If you want to challenge your existing approach and introduce constructive healthy debates about taking additional risks or eliminating redundant "just in case" processes,Â
- If you no longer want to over-invest in compliance for projects that never got approved, and
- If you are ready to scale up your company based on the “just in time” principles, then...
I’m excited to be able to help you gain clarity and confidence about your next steps toward expanding and accelerating your business!
You are likely to experience the following outcomes during the first 60 days:
- As a business leader or a founder, you will not longer feel restricted, not knowing which risks are real and which risks can be tolerated, because you will simplify your risk assessment approach by implementing simple affordable testing phase for any new initiative, so you will know exactly how and where to take more risks.
- As a compliance leader, you will know how to confidently present your proposals and budget requests and get them approved and your professional reputation will shift from “business-friendly” (aka “easy to manipulate”) to respectable and equal business-like compliance partner.Â
- Your company will have a blueprint for interactions with auditors, regulators, banks or financial partners.
- You will have an option to get officially certified (for you or one of your team members) as a FinTech Startups Compliance Pro (CPD assessed).
Successful scalable Just-in-Time compliance is ALWAYS based on 3 foundational pillars:
- Pragmatic Risk-AcceptanceÂ
- Operational Processes or Getting Stuff Done.
- Documentation
Why are these 3 components so essential?
- Pragmatic risk acceptance combined with efficient processes will create growth and scale.
- But… without documentation and policies, you will experience an “undocumented growth” which is a problem, when it comes to securing important partnerships and licenses or regulatory recognition (think Binance).
- Efficient processes combined with documentation will equal compliance because you do what your policies say, but without risk-taking, you end up being a conservative, rigid old-fashioned bank.
- Risk-taking combined with great documentation will create a great public image, but if you don’t actually do what your policies say, it is window-dressing, and you’ll get caught (think Wirecard or FTX).
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1. Pragmatic risk acceptance. Â
Stop doing Gap Analysis and shift your approach to the Cost-Benefit Analysis. ROI should become your single most important compliance metric. Risk management and risk acceptance are fancy words for good judgment and efficient decision-making. If you would like your compliance to add value and scale, you must set appropriate incentives and business objectives to measure compliance success. Instead of managing your compliance function as a cost-center that appropriates budgets and is detached from the customer growth or revenue generation, you will learn to manage compliance function using the same approach you use to manage sales or business development function, using the ROI method. All members of the Compliance That Makes Sense programs are recommended to start their journey by completing our "The Rise of the Business-Like CCO" training as well as the dedicated workshop on “FinTech Compliance Performance”.
- The FinTech Compliance Performance training is designed to help you build, expand and optimize your compliance, set relevant goals, assess performance and resolve most common organizational conflicts related to compliance responsibilities and division of labor. The worst possible mistake one can make when asking for compliance resources is to claim that this expenditure "is mandatory". When your CEO or CFO hear that something is mandatory, they believe it's similar to paying taxes, which creates a strong tendency to minimize and delay the expense instead of considering possible benefits.Â
- The Rise of the Business-Like CCO training will debunk the outdated corporate employee “Boomer” stereotypes and the old-fashioned myth about risks and compliance. This “Boomer” mentality emerges when someone believes that their value and accomplishments come from efforts and accumulating more information — working longer, trying harder, accumulating more knowledge, and preparing for countless remote risks “just-in-case” (which is a broken strategy). Successful business-like CCOs and compliance leaders think very differently about risks, uncertainties and growth. They are unafraid of mistakes, and they don't merely search for solutions – they create solutions. They manage their compliance function as a profit center, not a cost center. They rely on cost-benefit analysis instead of the outdated Gap Analysis approach to assess new business opportunities or manage regulatory changes.
- The practical implementation of the new approach to risk is covered within the Business Wide Risk Assessment workshop.
- Risk Management Policy and Risk Assessment Templates are provided and cover all key aspects of your FinTech or Crypto business .
2. Just-in-Time Processes.Â
Compliance is not an information provider. It must become an implementation function. Compliance focus must shift from being an information provider to project management, especially with projects such as new licensing, opening bank accounts, closing partnerships or entering new geographies or verticals.Â
Another massive opportunity for compliance to add value is to drive efficiencies, save costs, reduce unnecessary checks and controls around customer onboarding and transaction monitoring, as well as simplify and standardize how you are responding to regulators, drafting reports, and managing ongoing inspections and audits. These processes need to be streamlined and simplified, otherwise, your compliance team will be spending too much time on documentation and not enough time on reviewing new projects, new clients, and new opportunities.Â
Implementation workshops for all critical aspects of compliance operations are included:
- Opening bank accountsÂ
- Managing your own FinTech licensingÂ
- Structuring White-Label solutions
- Choosing between the white-label and your own licensing
- FATCA/CRS implementation workshop
- Onboarding and risk-rating for corporate customersÂ
- Performing due diligence on your future financial partners (to avoid the risk of over-reliance on Wirecard, FTX or Railsbank)
- Creating your FinTech Privacy Policy and managing your GDPR compliance Â
- End-to-end Blockchain ComplianceÂ
- Preparing for and managing external auditsÂ
- Standardizing and simplifying you annual compliance reporting
- Complying with Apple and Google Appstore Guidelines
- DORA Compliance and documenting your outsourcingÂ
3. Documentation and policies
Regulatory and other approvals are often secured by preparing disclosures, reports, and policies. Our tried-and-tested templates are continuously fine-tuned and updated, based on feedback received from our clients. The worst possible mistake you can make with compliance policies is to start from scratch. Our templates will save you time and resources previously spent on reinventing the wheel and starting from scratch with a blank page syndrome!Â
This package of FinTech Compliance templates is updated for 2024 and includes all mandatory elements to set up your FinTech compliance documentation:
- AML, KYC, PEPs, sanctions policies and SOPs, onboarding flow setup guide (including policies, tools review, and guidance on admin and case management setup)
- Privacy and GDPR module, including privacy policy, GDPR compliance policy, binding corporate rules, and standard contractual closes or Data Transfer Appendix template (to be included in all your contracts with vendors and payments partners where data transfer is involved)
- Outsourcing framework setup, including outsourcing policy template and outsourcing assessment checklist
- Consumer and Investor Protection, including Customer Protection and Complaints Handling Policy, Investor Protection Policy, and Customer Funds Safeguarding Procedure (for fiat and crypto services)
- Information Security, including InfoSec policy, incident management, and business continuity policy
- Blockchain-specific regulations, including Blockchain Operational compliance policyÂ
- Corporate Governance and Board of Directors set up, Code of Conduct, Segregation of Duties guidance, Anti-Bribery and Corruption procedure, and other relevant templates (e.g. gift policy, HR screening, etc.)
- Business-wide risk assessment and product risk assessment (with dedicated sections for AML, Product, VASPs, General Risks, Financial Risks, Startup Risks, and Regulatory Risks)
- Risk Management, Assessment, and Fraud Prevention, including relevant Risk Management policy and Risk Assessment and Risk Assessment methodology templates
- Conflict of Interests and Insider Trading Policy
- Terms of Service, Affiliation and Loyalty Programs structuring (including sample language for loyalty points or reward programs, beta testing provisions, and affiliation program templates)
- Inter-Company Agreements and SLAs
- Detailed and comprehensive Annual Compliance Plan and sample Internal Audit Plan. Compliance Assurance Framework (roles of FLOD, SLOD, audit)
- FinTech Licensing - including License Application Template, financial projections template, business plan template, FinTech licensing roadmap, first regulatory inquiry template
- Token listing and token assessment criteria (for cryptocurrency exchanges or wallets).
- FATCA and CRS compliance policy
How It Works
There are two ways to work with me:
The FinTech Compliance Self-Starter is a comprehensive, DIY self-service toolkit for FinTech Startups on a tight budget, eager to learn fast and keep going. Certification for one person is included. No individual consultation hours included.
Consultancy services (Compliance That Makes Sense Helpline)Â is the right fit for your needs if you are a more advanced FinTech Startup and require additional consultations or assistance with documentation, licensing, audits or management of your compliance function. It can be very useful if your company is in the process of applying for financial licenses or entering into important partnerships and:
- You find yourself unable to make decisions fast enough or choose between alternatives (because you have never done many of these things before and lack experience),
- You received an urgent request from your regulators, partners, or auditors and you are not sure how to prepare your answers and supporting documents within this specific timeline (or you feel you need to improve your processes first and document it before you can be approved);
- You are feeling overwhelmed with conflicting advice, unreasonable or non-actionable feedback from auditors or regulators,
- You need more hands-on help talking to your banks, partners, and auditors, optimizing onboarding processes, resolving operational inefficiencies, or responding to regulators.
- In addition to all the content included in the FinTech Self-Starter, you get individual and personalized feedback and advice when you need it most. You can also ask us to produce documents and answers or join calls with your partners, regulators or auditors.Â
Both options grant you instant access to all content and will guide you (using video lectures, recorded workshops, and various downloadable materials and templates) through all key components of FinTech Compliance! Both packages include Certification option for one person.
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I have helped hundreds of students and dozens of FinTech companies get licensed, complete audits, close partnerships, expand into new geographies and launch new products.Â
My consulting clients pay me anywhere from 150k to 300k EUR a year to work with me. IÂ appreciate how valuable my time and expertise are because I know how to get results for my clients.
But over the last few years, I noticed that a lot of regulatory issues could have been avoided and time and money wouldn't be wasted, only if I had been able to meet with these teams sooner and share what I know.
This program is the actionable summary of everything I learned during the last years about how to save your valuable time and limited resources and help you focus on doing the right things at the right time. It offers proven strategies and solutions to help you fast-track your compliance and regulatory results.Â
This is an important investment, and the great news, it has an ROI of over 3000 % over the next 12 months!!!
- You can reduce your annual audit costs and audit issues remediation costs by 25,000 EUR when your documentation is solid and well structured and you know how to handle the audit as if it is an emergency.
- You will be accelerating your time to market by receiving faster sign-offs or approvals from partners or regulators, and avoid over-investing too soon into hiring and marketing, which can save you at least 25,000 EUR a month!
- You won't need to pay for additional consultancy, training, or seminars/webinars: another 20,000 EUR a year savings opportunity!
- You will not be overpaying for compliance tools and tech features within these tools that you don't need - it can generate additional savings of up to 50,000 EUR a year and will also save you a payroll of at least one additional analyst.
Compared to these savings and benefits of at least 120,000 EUR, an investment of 3,900 EUR for the FinTech Self-Starter is a no-brainer move!
FinTech Compliance Self-Starter Package
One-time payment
€ 3 900
- Immediate access to all self-study modules, templates, and materials included in Self-Starter Package
- 5 group workshops to prepare you for the FinTech Startup Compliance Pro Certification and help you implement our content within your company.
Compliance That Makes Sense Helpline
One-time payment
€ 25 000
- Immediate access to all study modules, templates, and materials included in Self-Starter Package
- 5 group workshops to prepare you for the FinTech Startup Compliance Pro Certification and help you implement our content within your company.
- A total of 30 hours in individual consultation or service time, during 6 months
The 3 main pillars of the Self-Starter will completely transform the way you approach FinTech compliance. But it's only the beginning!
When you invest into the Self-Starter Package, you also get 3 MASSIVE BONUS bundles to make your progress even faster and your transition to Just-in-Time Compliance even easier. Starting with…
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BONUS 1: FINTECH STARTUP COMPLIANCE PRO CERTIFICATION
This program allows you to complete our very unique FinTech Compliance certification that will elevate your competence and confidence to the next level where you feel ready not only to set and manage a superb compliance program within your FinTech startup, but will have a framework for making pragmatic risk-based decisions.
The Certification Schedule for 2024
3 cohorts are currently planned for 2024:
- Starting on January 15 and graduating by April 15.
- Starting on April 15 and graduating by August 15.
- Starting on September 16 and graduating by December 16.
If you would like to obtain the official certification as a Certified Startup FinTech Compliance Pro, you will be asked to complete a number of mandatory trainings and prepare your case study project, which will be assessed and graded.Â
Below is the Certification-specific curriculum:
1. Goal-setting. Our first group call is a workshop dedicated to determining specific deliverables or professional results each participant decides to set for themselves or their function.
2. Manage regulatory change workshop is dedicated to developing the skills needed to prepare and manage any regulatory change. We will use the example of MICA Regulation implementation, and in particular - on building a new MICA-compliance framework for token listing and token assessment to get compliant with MICA disclosure requirements.
3. Preparing compliance ROI and communicating with senior management. We will have a special training where the participants will have to analyze key components of the compliance costs prepare a project analysis for a new compliance initiative using ROI method. This workshop also provides you with a framework to address disagreements between compliance and business using NLP framework.
4. Developing Annual Compliance Plan training covers the following areas:
- Organizational structure
- Hiring and firing principles
- Setting revenue-generating objectives
- Making ROI-based resource estimates
- Defining KPIs for all key compliance areas: new products, AML, risk management, reporting, outsourcing, funds safeguarding, and governance.
5. Behaviors that keep us stuck and conflict resolution. Everyone who was unable to take an agreed-upon action, feels “behind” or otherwise is unhappy with their progress, will have to assess what is preventing them from taking a different action and will get coaching and feedback on how to make the changes they desire to see. This training also covers communication strategies helping you solve intra-departmental conflicts using the NLP methodology.
Final Assignment – where can you take more risks? The participants will have to identify, prepare, and justify a case study about where their function or company should take more risks.Â
BONUS 2:Â FinTech Compliance for beginners module (or a refresher if you are new in FinTech but not new in compliance).
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BONUS 3:Â Q&A calls archive with dozens of compliance and risk case studies and real-live examples and questions answered!
About me:
Yana Afanasieva led regional European compliance teams for PayPal and Amazon for several years. In 2016, she started her consulting business based in Zug, Switzerland, and delivered great results for Lirium, LCX, Banxa, Cryptopay, Alviere, RevvUp, Mara, Newcent, TenX, BitPesa/Aza, BitFlyer, and several other prominent FinTech startups.Â
... AND, BECAUSE I ACTUALLY GIVE A FAQ!
YOUR MOST POPULAR QUESTIONS, ANSWERED:
I’m at the prototype stage, with no real customers, do I need all these policies and processes?
Yes, you do need many of those, because otherwise, you will not know what you need to build inside of your product to be ready to scale and get into serious partnerships, and you risk having more employees than customers for a long time. Additionally, you probably need to open a bank account, apply for sandbox permissions and pitch your services to large financial institutions => and all of this requires you to be able to produce a convincing document package and successfully complete the necessary due diligence.
Can I really DIY everything, what if I need help?
If you are a more advanced startup in the process of applying for financial licenses or entering into important partnerships and you find yourself stuck, losing time and money, and feeling overwhelmed with conflicting advice and lack of real progress with necessary permissions, approvals, and audits, if you need more hands-on help with talking to your regulators or auditors, choosing compliance tools, optimizing onboarding processes, or another type of support from someone who has been in the trenches and really knows how things work and what others did in similar situations, then Compliance That Makes Sense Helpline is probably the right fit for your needs. In addition to all the content included in the FinTech Self-Starter, this Helpline grants you individual consultation time with Yana, so that you get feedback or advice when you need it most – meaning you or your team can talk to Yana about your "situation" and brainstorm your options and strategies for getting unstuck.
I don’t need help and have no time to follow through with this content – I just need more time to do what’s on my desk already.
If you do compliance, you may be thinking that you don't need help – you just need more resources and time to do what you need to do. I'm not saying you need help with reading laws and regulations. You probably don't!Â
To be successful at delivering on compliance projects you need more than just technical compliance expertise – you need to learn and master know-how that you cannot find in compliance policies, such as how to estimate and articulate your risk strategy, learn where and how to rely on technology, and change the way you communicate with authorities. Imagine, what would it look like – if you could have fewer compliance meetings, shorter due diligence review cycles, fewer manual checks, a more productive and efficient compliance team, and lower cost of KYC and compliance tools. Will it give you some time back? – I think so.
How much is the investment?
This is an important investment, and the great news, it has an ROI of over 3000 % over the next 12 months!!!
- You can reduce your annual audit costs and audit issues remediation costs by 25,000 EUR when your documentation is solid and well structured and you know how to handle the audit as if it is an emergency.
- You will be accelerating your time to market by receiving faster sign-offs or approvals from partners or regulators, and avoid over-investing too soon into hiring and marketing, which can save you at least 25,000 EURÂ a month!
- You won't need to pay for additional consultancy, training, or seminars/webinars: another 20,000 EUR a year savings opportunity!
- You will not be overpaying for compliance tools and tech features within these tools that you don't need - it can generate additional savings of up to 50,000 EUR a year and will also save you a payroll of at least one additional analyst.
Compared to these savings and benefits of at least 120,000 EUR, an investment of 3,900 EUR for the FinTech Self-Starter is a smart move!
You can delay this decision, as some short-term thinkers do, but a few months later, they usually find themselves having to pay much more for audit findings remediation, urgent consultancy, and other unnecessary and entirely avoidable costs.
How do I know that your experience will work for my business? What if my business model is very unique?
During my years at PayPal as a head of regional compliance, a part of my job was to review and vet startups and merchants who wanted to work with PayPal. Later on, I helped dozens of startups either as my direct clients or students or as a part of working with acceleration programs. This experience confirms that about 90% of compliance documentation and strategies can be standardized. If you have your unique questions, we can discuss them during the calls or via e-mail as a part of the Helpline Service.
Is there a refund policy?
There is no refund policy for any of the offers. As soon as you have accessed the content, it is non-refundable.
How long will I have access to the content?
Once you have access, all content within your relevant modules and templates is made available to you immediately and downloadable immediately, you can just keep it for as long as you wish. Your access to the FinTech Self-Starter is unlimited.
How quickly do I need to catch up with the content? Is there a deadline? What does the "FinTech Startup Compliance Pro" certification really mean? How much effort is it?
There is no deadline in terms of your access to the content. You can go at your own pace and depending on the needs of your business you can start with any module or any template – everything will be instantly released and available.Â
Certification is a new format, an enhancement of this program, to introduce more accountability, more discipline, and an additional feedback mechanism for those participants who would like to get certified. It is optional and at this time does not cost anything extra. We will use Zoom for our workshop calls.
In order to get certified you must watch all 10 mandatory workshops, attend or watch the recordings of 5 certification-specific trainings, and successfully complete a case study project.
Can I pay by bank transfer? Or in a different currency?
Yes, you can pay by SEPA/IBAN transfer in EUR or in Swiss Francs. Reach out to [email protected] for details.
What happens if I don’t invest?
- You may spend many months developing your in-house policies and templates without knowing what the best practices are applied by the industry (or you will end up engaging large consultancy firms who will cost you an arm and a leg.Â
- Your compliance head may be asking you to add more and more people to the compliance team and you will never know whether this is a reasonable request or if is there a better way.Â
- Your financial partners or auditors may ask you to dramatically modify your user experience or customer onboarding flow and it could drive you insane because implementing their recommendations will likely kill your conversions.
- You will be receiving tons of offers from numerous KYC, AML, and fraud management vendors, they will all be telling you horror stories of how others got fined and paid millions of euros of penalties because they did not have these tools, and you will keep wondering if it’s really true.Â
I still have a question, who can I talk to to make sure this offer is right for me?
You can send me a direct message on LinkedIn or email me at [email protected] – All questions get answered!
Which of these results and outcomes would you like the most?
Yana is an outstanding and seasoned compliance & regulatory professional who has extensive experience and knowledge in crypto and fintech in general. She is one of the most valuable partner for our strategic advisory from compliance point of view. As her company name suggests, if you want your compliance team to be “competitive”, she is the best person to speak to.
Yana has incredible depth of knowledge on the compliance and regulatory needs in the Fintech and Crypto space across the UK and Europe. Â She has provided the highest level of insight and been very proactive to help us achieve our company goals.
Yana is an outstanding Compliance and Regulatory Risk professional. I've learnt so much from her working with her in the executive team. Her risk-managed yet business friendly approach balances customer needs, technical requirements and regulatory obligations in a manner that turns compliance into a business advantage. Her knowledge of regulatory environments, licensing, risk and AML controls allowed our team to push products that nobody else could match while keeping bad actors and fraudulent transactions well below industry benchmarks. I highly recommend having her guidance and expertise on your team at any stage of your business.
Fintech Startup Compliance Pro Certification experience.
In a world of endless regulatory reports, audits, partner due diligences, incidents, documentation updates, and licensing, I am somehow not losing focus and am always able to do the right thing at the right time by applying Yana’s just-in-time method. It's important to note that this certification isn't a quick fix for personal change. It's more of a journey, taking several months of effort to adopt the right mindset.
Another great thing is that it doesn't treat compliance in isolation. Compliance professionals dream, burn out, get sick, have feelings, and want to work on great stuff. Yana's coaching combines compliance expertise and addresses both the technical and human aspects of the profession. It's been a significant help for me, and I think it could be for others too.
Yana is an incredibly knowledgeable, experienced regulatory & compliance consultant with whom I had the pleasure of working for several years when I was the COO of AZA, an emerging markets fintech company. I especially appreciated her versatility as a consultant - not only did she roll up her sleeves and lead tactical projects such as the re-authorisation of our UK and EU payment licenses (which involved a lot of policy writing), but also added long-term strategic value by coaching our Legal & Compliance Team to prepare for presentations to regulators at various Central Banks across Africa.
It’s rare that you come across standout talent like Yana. I had the pleasure of working with her for nearly three years at Mara, BitPesa (now AZA) and Founders Bank collectively, we often collaborate closely on FinTech projects with heavy compliance requirements. I am always impressed by Yana's ability to bridge the gap between scalable technical solutions and solid compliance leadership and guidance—effortlessly. That skill often takes years to develop, but it seemed to come perfectly naturally. I always enjoy working with Yana, as a team member or a leader, Yana earns my highest recommendation.
I’ve got so much to share about Yana and her impact on my professional journey! I come from a legal background, and my mindset was all about being conservative, risk-averse, and disconnected from the business. But then Yana's podcast changed everything. I was shocked when I first heard that compliance should genuinely care about the business, understand marketing, care about conversions. It hit me like a lightning bolt - "Wait, aren't we the second line of defense, independent from the business and guarding company from the risk?" It took me a little time to realize that I had been wrong all along, even with my four CAMS certificates feeling useless and like a waste of money (despite some companies still requiring them!).
Before long, I discovered Yana's concept of 'business-like and just in time compliance,' and it was like magic. Suddenly, compliance was being heard, invited to important meetings, and kept in the loop about product changes way ahead of time. We became trusted partners to the business, no longer just the department of 'NO.' It's crazy to think about how far we've come. From a company in its 'age of innocence,' with undocumented growth, to a compliance function that's now a 'leverage' for the company. We're securing crucial partnerships, opening bank accounts, obtaining licenses and authorizations, and acing audits.
Yana's guidance has been invaluable. I wholeheartedly recommend her products, especially the Compliance Collective. They have been one of the absolute best investments in my professional career. Yana rocks!
 Now – it's your turn!
My templates are tested by dozens of FinTech professionals and hundreds of participants have joined my workshops and shared raving reviews.Â
Are you ready to make the change or are you still dwelling in the past?
- So many FinTech startups spend months, struggling to build their compliance documentation from scratch, googling and copying random policies and contracts from the internet, or hiring expensive lawyers to draft documents that nobody from the company can read or understand.
- Many FinTech founders believe that it's hard or impossible to find the right compliance people or that they themselves could do compliance better than anyone else by doing their own research and benchmarking everyone.Â
- FinTech CEOs tell me that they want to be compliant, but find it to be an elusive target, where no matter how much they invest, it's never enough, and it takes forever to get anything approved, nobody could answer their questions about what is the real risk of not doing certain things or why their competitor was able to get away with so little compliance efforts.
- This institutional legacy and old-fashion approach to compliance keeps them stuck and stops them dead in their tracks.
- Many of these startups will never make it to the level where they want to be and run out of funding.
This is the first and potentially the only REAL SOLUTION designed by the compliance expert to empower FinTech founders and their compliance teams teams to build and grow their compliance based on agile "just in time" principles and using pragmatic risk acceptance approach.
Compliance That Makes Sense cannot be learned at regulatory seminars or from reading laws and circulars. It comes from the practice and many many mistakes that you can now avoid.Â
My ultimate goal is to elevate the prestige and reputation of compliance as a function by helping as many startups as I can, training and empowering their teams, and showing what's possible to achieve with "just in time" compliance and how affordable it can be.
So, tell me – are you still in?
At this point, you may be asking yourself if you should continue figuring things out on your own or not.
This is actually the wrong question to ask because every successful entrepreneur and business leader will tell you that they got where they are because they had mentors, coaches, and other support from more experienced people.
So the more powerful question you should be asking is WHO can support you and WHERE you can find help and continued guidance.Â
And as you already know, if you choose nothing... then nothing changes. You can obviously keep the status quo blindly pouring more time and money into compliance without much hope of creating different results or reversing existing inefficiencies... But why would you put yourself into this position, pursuing a broken strategy, draining your resources, and creating more and more organizational conflicts?Â
If you are still here and still reading and thinking whether or not you should invest and if so, who will be responsible for actually following the content and executing the recommendations... just appoint someone to get started.
This is exactly what you don't need to know or decide right now. Right now you have to make a commitment to building a compliance function that makes sense to you and your business, and from now on you can take just one step and one decision at a time to keep making progress.
So -
- Are you going to continue to be a person who plays a victim, complaining about confusing compliance requirements, unreasonable auditors, or some other uncertain circumstances or will you take responsibility for being a leader and problem solver?
- Are you a person who sees obstacles or opportunities? More specifically, will you be a forward-looking visionary entrepreneur who sees how agile compliance can be a massive competitive advantage for your business?
- Are you a business owner or an executive who waits for the perfect time or an action taker who knows when enough excuses are enough excuses, and it’s time to move ahead even when you don’t have all the answers?
Well, if you are a smart action-taker and ready to commit, simply click the button below and I will be waiting for you on the inside.Â
FinTech Compliance Self-Starter Package
One-time payment
€ 3 900
- Immediate access to all self-study modules, templates, and materials included in Self-Starter Package
- 5 group workshops to prepare you for the FinTech Startup Compliance Pro Certification and help you implement our content within your company.
Compliance That Makes Sense Helpline
One-time payment
€ 25 000
- Immediate access to all study modules, templates, and materials included in Self-Starter Package
- 5 group workshops to prepare you for the FinTech Startup Compliance Pro Certification and help you implement our content within your company.
- A total of 30 hours in individual consultation or service time, during 6 months.
