Full-Time
Lead KYB
Pennylane
1,001-5,000 employees
Real-time accounting platform for SMBs
No salary listed
Île-de-France, France + 1 more
More locations: Remote in France
Hybrid
Regular on-site presence in Paris is expected; partial remote work is possible. Remote work from Europe is limited to within two hours of Central European Time.
 Risk & Compliance (1) |
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- At least 5 years of experience in KYB/KYC, compliance operations, risk operations, or financial services operations.
- Experience in a regulated environment such as a fintech, bank, payment institution, electronic money institution, banking-as-a-service provider, or embedded finance provider.
- Proven experience managing or coordinating operational teams in a high-volume environment.
- Strong exposure to anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing requirements and business-customer onboarding.
- Experience translating policies into operational processes, standard operating procedures, and analyst guidance.
- Hands-on experience with KYB tooling, back-office tools, or workflow automation.
- Experience working with Product and Technology teams on tooling or process improvements.
- Strong understanding of KYB/KYC workflows for business customers, including legal entity verification, ultimate beneficial owner identification, document review, risk classification, politically exposed person and sanctions screening, and high-risk escalation.
- Good knowledge of French and European anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing frameworks, including ACPR, TRACFIN, and FATF expectations.
- Ability to design scalable operational processes and performance frameworks.
- Comfort using operational metrics, dashboards, and analytics to manage performance.
- Ability to identify inefficiencies, structure workflows, and improve quality at scale.
- Ability to balance compliance, customer experience, and operational efficiency.
- Ability to contribute meaningfully to tooling design, testing, and implementation.
- Fluent French and English.
- Based in France, with regular on-site presence in Paris expected.
- Own the end-to-end operational execution of KYB/KYC workflows for business customers.
- Ensure application of Compliance-defined anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing policies, including customer risk classification, beneficial ownership checks, politically exposed person and sanctions screening, high-risk customer reviews, and escalation of sensitive cases within service-level agreements.
- Review and approve complex or high-risk KYB cases.
- Ensure continuity of compliance during the transition from the current banking-as-a-service model to Pennylane Financial Services’ own operating model.
- Maintain auditability of KYB decisions, including rejection rationales, escalation trails, and supporting documentation.
- Recruit, onboard, train, and manage the KYB analyst team.
- Define the target team structure, roles, responsibilities, and escalation paths.
- Build the KYB team performance framework, including service-level agreements, productivity metrics, quality metrics, backlog monitoring, and capacity planning.
- Prepare the team to scale toward high-volume onboarding at go-live and beyond.
- Translate regulatory policies into operational procedures, standard operating procedures, decision trees, and analyst playbooks.
- Standardize KYB processes for consistency, scalability, and a smooth onboarding experience.
- Identify workflow bottlenecks and propose operational improvements.
- Balance compliance rigor with operational efficiency while preserving Pennylane Financial Services’ risk appetite.
- Define how KYB processes should evolve during the migration from Swan’s operational model to Pennylane’s own first line of defense setup.
- Contribute to implementing and optimizing KYB tooling and back-office workflows.
- Work with Product and Technology teams to design efficient analyst interfaces and operational workflows.
- Test KYB tooling before go-live from an operational perspective.
- Identify automation opportunities for document verification, data collection, alert triage, and case pre-analysis.
- Ensure automation improves efficiency while preserving quality, traceability, and risk control.
- Implement a KYB quality-assurance framework covering random sampling, peer reviews, calibration sessions, error tracking, and remediation plans.
- Monitor operational and risk indicators to detect process weaknesses or compliance issues.
- Produce regular reporting on KYB performance, risk trends, backlog, service-level agreement adherence, and quality.
- Support Compliance during audits, controls testing, and regulatory reviews by providing evidence and operational insights.
- Act as the main operational point of contact for KYB-related matters.
- Work with Compliance, Risk, Fraud, Product, Technology, Customer Support, and Finance teams.
- Provide operational input on new features, customer journeys, and onboarding requirements.
- Translate KYB constraints into pragmatic product decisions with Product and Technology teams.
- Collaborate with other first-line-of-defense teams, especially Transaction Monitoring and Fraud and Risk, to ensure a coherent customer risk lifecycle.
- Translate the onboarding policy submitted to the regulator into operational procedures, analyst playbooks, and escalation rules.
- Define the KYB team target organization and hiring plan.
- Build the first version of the KYB performance dashboard and operating cadence.
- Contribute to the implementation and configuration of KYB and back-office tools.
- Prepare operational readiness for go-live through team training, runbooks, decision trees, quality assurance, incident escalation paths, and a capacity model.
- Ensure the KYB organization is ready to support approximately 10,000 onboardings per month while maintaining compliance quality and customer experience.
- Experience with ACPR expectations, license applications, audits, banking-as-a-service migrations, or credit-related onboarding.
- Strong leadership and coaching skills.
- Experience operating in a greenfield environment with ambiguity, high autonomy, and fast execution.
- Ability to translate complex regulatory or operational topics into simple, actionable guidance.
- Customer-conscious approach to onboarding friction and customer impact while preserving risk standards.
Pennylane is a financial and accounting platform for SMBs and their accountants that centralizes all financial data in real time. It lets managers manage invoicing, payments, cash flow, and reporting while giving accountants a single production tool. The service is subscription-based and designed to be used by both the company and its external accountant, with real-time visibility and a single source of truth. It targets France and Europe, offering features like sales/purchase management, cash flow forecasting, dashboards, and is a certified Partner Dematerialization Platform (PDP) for upcoming e-invoicing rules.
Company Size
1,001-5,000
Company Stage
Series E
Total Funding
$443.9M
Headquarters
Paris, France
Founded
2020
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Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- France's 1 September 2026 receipt mandate forces SMB migration into approved e-invoicing platforms.
- Pennylane's all plans include electronic invoicing and e-reporting, removing adoption friction.
- The January 2026 €175 million round funded European expansion and AI accounting automation.
What critics are saying
- Qonto, Sage, and Cegid all attack the same SME compliance workflow in France.
- Pennylane's $4.25 billion valuation demands flawless execution and fast revenue growth.
- France's 2027 SME issuance deadline shifts customers away if Pennylane's PDP breaks.
What makes Pennylane unique
- Pennylane unifies accounting, banking, invoicing, and PDP compliance for French SMBs.
- DGFiP registered Pennylane as an approved platform on 11 December 2025.
- Native accountant collaboration plus real-time cash visibility beats bank-first tools like Qonto.
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Benefits
Remote Work Options
Company Equity
Home Office Stipend
Wellness Program
Paid Vacation
Health Insurance
Lunch Credits
Flexible Work Hours
Gym Membership
401(k) Company Match
Growth & Insights and Company News
6 month growth
↑ 0%1 year growth
↑ 1%2 year growth
↑ 1%Qonto and Pennylane, two Paris-based fintechs, operate as both partners and competitors in Europe's SME financial services market. Qonto, founded in 2016 and valued at $5 billion, serves over 600,000 customers across eight European countries with business banking, corporate cards and bookkeeping tools. Pennylane, founded in 2020 and valued at $4.25 billion, has over 800,000 customers using its all-in-one accounting and financial management platform. Whilst both companies integrate with each other's services, they increasingly compete for business. The rivalry will intensify as France introduces mandatory electronic invoicing for B2B transactions in September. Qonto is pursuing a French banking licence to offer lending products, whilst Pennylane recently raised $200 million to fund potential acquisitions. Qonto's managing director emphasises their different customer acquisition strategies, though both target traditional financial incumbents.
The funding round values Pennylane at $4.25bn, according to a report.
Pennylane, a French accounting software startup, has raised $200 million in a funding round led by TCV, with participation from Blackstone Growth and existing investors Sequoia, DST, CapitalG and Meritech. Founded in 2020 by Arthur Waller, Pennylane offers an all-in-one platform combining accounting production, financial management and payments, designed for seamless collaboration between accountants and their clients. The company differentiates itself from competitors like Xero and QuickBooks through its European regulatory focus and partnership approach with accounting firms. The platform features AI-driven automation, real-time financial insights and integrated payment tools. Pennylane now supports 6,000 accounting firms and 800,000 companies, employing 1,000 people. The funding will accelerate AI development and European expansion as the company approaches profitability.
French company Pennylane is negotiating a fresh investment of around $200 million at a $4.25 billion valuation.
Pennylane, a French fintech, has secured a €75 million funding round, doubling its valuation to €2 billion. The company plans to leverage new invoicing regulations and AI to expand, focusing on France before targeting continental Europe. With 4,500 accounting firms and 350,000 SMEs as clients, Pennylane aims to capitalize on France's mandatory e-invoicing reform by 2026. CEO Arthur Waller projects $100 million ARR this year, emphasizing AI's role in enhancing accountant services.