Fintech Risk Associate

Grasshopper Bank•New York, NY

3d•Remote

About The Position

Grasshopper Bank is seeking a Fintech Risk Associate for its Risk Management department. This remote, second-line role independently executes risk-management activities across the Bank’s Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) portfolio and serves as a trusted risk advisor to business leaders, internal stakeholders, and fintech partners. The position owns partner due diligence, ongoing monitoring, remediation, and cross-functional initiatives. The associate evaluates prospective and existing fintech partners, including their business models, products, controls, regulatory considerations, operational environments, and risk profiles. The role also assesses new products, features, customer journeys, and partnership structures, helping define requirements, mitigations, and approval conditions for responsible launches. The associate works across internal teams and with external partners to manage risks, resolve issues, and improve risk-management processes and controls. Grasshopper Bank is a client-first, digital bank serving the business and innovation economy. Its products and services span VC, PE and portfolio companies, SBA lending, direct SMB, and embedded banking. The Bank describes its culture as collaborative, inclusive, and grounded in integrity and respect. Its digital-first approach supports remote work, and it has offices in NYC and Boston.

Requirements

Typically 5–8 years of experience in banking, fintech, risk management, compliance, third-party risk management, internal audit, or a related field.
Demonstrated ability to independently lead risk assessments, due diligence, monitoring, testing, issue management, or remediation.
Strong experience with financial crimes compliance, including BSA/AML, OFAC watchlists and sanctions, and fraud risk.
Working knowledge of banking and payments compliance, including UDAAP; NACHA, Visa/Mastercard, FedNow, and The Clearing House RTP; Reg E, Reg Z, Reg DD, Reg CC, ECOA, and FCRA; and data privacy requirements such as GLBA, FCRA, and applicable state laws.
Experience with Third-Party Risk Management and related interagency guidance from the OCC, FDIC, and Federal Reserve.
Demonstrated ability to manage external relationships, field partner requests, communicate with senior stakeholders, and influence without direct authority.
Project-management, analytical, problem-solving, decision-making, risk-escalation, and reporting skills.
Experience reviewing or developing risk assessment, monitoring, testing, and reporting templates and processes.
Strong judgment, attention to detail, collaboration, creativity, and ability to prioritize competing demands in an evolving environment.
Bachelor’s degree or equivalent relevant work experience.

Nice To Haves

Knowledge of fintech, payments, embedded finance, BaaS, or lending business models.
Experience with Lending-as-a-Service, fintech lending, loan products, or lending-partner risk management.

Responsibilities

Lead risk-based due diligence for prospective fintech partners, evaluate risks and controls, and present findings and recommendations to senior management before onboarding.
Own pre- and post-launch risk and compliance requirements for new partners, track commitments, and ensure launch readiness.
Conduct ongoing monitoring, testing, quality assurance, and risk reviews for assigned partners.
Assess partners’ adherence to Bank policies, regulatory requirements, contractual obligations, and approved risk tolerances.
Track findings and remediation plans through closure, identify trends and emerging risks, and escalate material issues appropriately.
Improve due diligence, monitoring, testing, and assessment templates and processes to strengthen consistency, efficiency, and risk coverage.
Serve as a primary risk and compliance contact for assigned fintech partners; build relationships, field questions and requests, coordinate responses, and provide guidance on Bank requirements and applicable regulations.
Develop a detailed understanding of each partner’s business model, products, customer journey, technology and operations, control framework, and risk profile.
Evaluate proposed products, features, customer journeys, and partnership structures for risk, compliance, control, and operational considerations; define requirements, mitigations, and approval conditions.
Partner with BSA, Embedded Finance, Operations, Product, Legal, Information Security, Compliance, Technology, and other teams to assess risks, implement controls, and resolve issues.
Own cross-functional initiatives from scope through implementation, including workplans, dependencies, stakeholder alignment, decisions, and outcomes.
Maintain a prioritized roadmap for control gaps and process improvements.
Contribute to policies, procedures, monitoring programs, reporting, dashboards, presentations, and governance materials.
Monitor developments in fintech, payments, lending, and regulation and assess their implications for the Bank’s BaaS portfolio.