Yousef AlFarra

Compliance and risk leader with 8+ years of progressive experience across regulated payments, AML/CFT, fraud, operational risk and digital financial services.

Currently

Compliance & Risk Manager, MLRO and Secretary to the Board at a Central Bank of Jordan-licensed payment service provider. Leads the AML/CFT framework, regulatory engagement, operational and third-party risk, corporate governance, KYC/KYB and product compliance across prepaid cards, e-money wallets and instant payments. Experienced in translating regulation into practical controls, assessing new business and fund-flow models, leading system implementations and regulatory remediation, and filing suspicious transaction reports with the Jordanian FIU.

Compliance & Risk Manager | MLRO | Secretary to the Board at Gate To Pay — Jordanian Elaf for Integrated Solutions (2024-01 – Present)

Payment service provider licensed by the Central Bank of Jordan

• Act as the institution's MLRO, owning the end-to-end AML/CFT programme across cardholder, wallet and corporate portfolios; assess suspicious activity, approve escalation decisions and prepare/file STRs with the Jordanian Financial Intelligence Unit.
• Lead direct supervisory engagement with the Central Bank of Jordan, including product and approval submissions, responses to circulars and formal inquiries, on-site examination support, remediation of findings and bilingual regulatory correspondence.
• Serve as the internal regulatory decision point for new products, partners and fund-flow models, assessing permissibility, licensing implications, required approvals and controls across e-wallets, prepaid, gift and expense cards, instant payments, white-label models, BIN sponsorship, marketplace and crowdfunding structures.
• Own regulatory change management by translating central-bank instructions into departmental actions, briefing business owners, agreeing implementation plans and tracking closure.
• Oversee AML transaction monitoring and sanctions/PEP screening, including scenario and threshold calibration, alert-review quality, daily and periodic screening, maker-checker controls and system testing using World-Check / Refinitiv and IDWise eKYC.
• Lead compliance and risk technology projects end to end — regulatory requirements, functional specifications, vendor/internal coordination, UAT and go-live sign-off — including core payment-system migration, AML monitoring migration, eKYC and screening deployments.
• Partner closely with IT to design and implement in-house name/sanctions-screening and AML/CFT monitoring and control tools, defining compliance requirements, screening logic, detection scenarios, maker-checker controls, exception handling, audit trails, testing and validation.
• Own annual risk-based regulatory self-assessment and a semi-annual country-risk methodology covering approximately 250 jurisdictions using FATF, EU, UN/OFAC, CPI and Basel AML Index inputs; maintain the enterprise operational-risk register and KRI framework.
• Lead corporate onboarding controls, including KYB, UBO and ownership-structure analysis, licence verification, foreign-document legalisation and risk-tiered EDD for higher-risk sectors such as forex firms, financial institutions and offshore entities.
• Run third-party and outsourcing risk reviews for cross-border and technology partnerships, including white-label issuing, BIN sponsorship and card-hosting arrangements, with contract and regulatory gap analysis.
• Own customer-complaints handling, internal compliance investigations and regulatory incident assessment, including fraud allegations, suspected data leakage, service misuse and operational incidents; coordinate with IT, Operations and Legal, determine notification/escalation requirements and drive corrective actions.
• As Secretary to the Board, coordinate board and committee papers, minutes, resolutions and action tracking; support corporate-governance compliance, audit/assurance reviews and remediation reporting.
• Lead a team of five compliance, AML and risk staff, enforce maker-checker segregation, design workflows and controls, manage workload and deliver AML/CFT, sanctions, fraud and onboarding training.

Compliance & AML Supervisor at Gate To Pay — Jordanian Elaf for Integrated Solutions (2022-02 – 2023-12)

• Drafted and implemented AML/CFT, CDD/EDD and compliance procedures; managed day-to-day onboarding review, high-risk due diligence, transaction-monitoring investigations and regulatory reporting.
• Partnered with IT on AML monitoring and screening-system deployment, defining detection rules, data requirements, testing criteria and control workflows; supported audits, regulatory examinations and staff training.

Fraud Monitoring & AML/CFT Officer at Middle East Payment Services (MEPS) (2019-12 – 2022-02)

Payments, merchant acquiring, card processing and fraud / AML monitoring

• Monitored POS, merchant, cardholder and partner-bank transaction activity across an acquiring and card-processing environment for fraud, AML/CFT and operational risk; investigated monitoring cases and escalated high-risk findings.
• Prepared risk reports on high-risk merchants and cardholders and prepared/submitted suspicious activity reports; reviewed AML/CFT and business-continuity policies and supported internal/external audit requirements.
• Enhanced AML monitoring scenarios and thresholds, validated sanctions-screening results to improve matching accuracy and reduce false positives, and applied Visa/Mastercard fraud, AML and card-scheme requirements.
• Reviewed merchant agreements, customer/merchant documentation and operational parameters, including checks for document irregularities and compliance with onboarding and service requirements.

Digital Payment Officer at Middle East Payment Services (MEPS) (2018-09 – 2019-12)

• Supported implementation and development of digital payment products, prepared product/proposal reports, monitored operational plans and coordinated customer requirements, complaints and product feedback.
• Maintained customer documentation and worked across operations and product teams to align digital-payment services with internal requirements and applicable controls.

Business Analyst Officer at Middle East Payment Services (MEPS) (2018-04 – 2018-07)

• Developed business plans, processes and management reports; analysed sales, merchant profitability and competitor activity, identified improvement opportunities and supported client acquisition.

BSc in Management Information Systems – University of Petra (2017)