Head of Finance & Custody

**Location** ------------ United Arab Emirates **Employment Type** ------------------- Full time **Location Type** ----------------- Remote **Department** -------------- Finance & AccountingFinance Overview **Building the Future of Open Finance** ======================================= Payward - the parent company behind Kraken, NinjaTrader, Breakout, xStocks, Payward Services and CF Benchmarks - has spent the last 15 years building one of the most modern and globally accessible financial infrastructure platforms in the industry, built to advance an open, global financial system. Before you apply, we encourage you to explore our culture page to understand what drives us and how we work. **The team** ------------ Founded in 2011, Kraken is one of the world's longest-standing crypto platforms, trusted by over 10 million individuals and institutions across the globe. It offers spot trading, margin, futures, staking, and OTC services, with products built for both individual investors and institutional clients. **The opportunity** ------------------- We are looking for an experienced finance and client asset professional to take on the role of Head of Finance & Custody for our VARA-regulated Dubai VASP entity. The role combines ownership of core financial and management reporting for the local entity with day-to-day oversight of the safeguarding of client money and client virtual assets (VAs) held under the entity's VASP Licence. The successful candidate will act as the bridge between Group Finance, Group Client Asset Office, and the local VARA-regulated business, and will be expected to build a robust control environment for a newly licensed entity operating across a compulsory and activity-specific VARA rulebook set. This role is best suited to a tenacious, control-focused finance professional who is comfortable owning both traditional financial/regulatory reporting and custody/client-asset safeguarding obligations in a single remit, and who can operate with minimal supervision in a fast-evolving regulatory environment. **Finance & Regulatory Reporting** ---------------------------------- * Own the delivery of monthly, quarterly, and annual management and financial accounts for the VARA VASP entity, including budget-to-actuals review; * Prepare and submit VARA regulatory reporting packs (monthly, quarterly, and annual, as applicable) and act as the primary point of contact with VARA on finance-related information requests; * Prepare forecasts and budgets for the local entity in collaboration with the Group FP&A team, including ongoing review of paid-up capital and Net Liquid Assets (NLA) headroom against activity-specific thresholds; * Lead the local entity's involvement in the statutory audit process, acting as key liaison with Group Financial Control; * Develop and maintain the finance function's control environment and Finance risk register for the newly established Dubai entity; * Support the Group FP&A team with ad-hoc corporate requests applicable to both the local entity and the broader Group agenda; * Prepare legal entity Board presentations covering financial performance and capital/NLA position. **Client Asset & Custody Safeguarding** --------------------------------------- * Monitor, control, and report on the safeguarding of client money and client virtual assets as applicable to the entity's licensed activities; * Own the daily reconciliation of client virtual assets and the daily reconciliation of client money held in UAE-based client accounts, escalating material unresolved discrepancies for notification to VARA; * Own the daily reserve asset coverage workbook, evidencing one-to-one, same-VA reserve coverage of client liabilities, and coordinate the independent audit of reserve assets at the required cadence; * Maintain client money placement timelines (client money into a client account within the required timeframe of receipt) and escalation of the aged-item exception queue; * Enforce no-rehypothecation controls over custody assets and ensure custody assets are never reported as firm assets; * Develop, coordinate, and maintain the entity's client asset/custody safeguarding procedures and control framework, and chair or contribute to the internal client asset governance forum or Board; * Maintain the paid-up capital and licence/activity capital matrix, the NLA reconciliation and reporting workflow, and liaise with Group Risk on the insurance schedule (professional indemnity, D&O, commercial crime/hot-wallet cover); * Own the breach-notification playbook for capital, NLA, insurance, or reserve-asset shortfalls, ensuring timely escalation and regular updates until rectified; * Maintain and test the client asset return element of the entity's wind-down plan, including the client asset return runbook, records retention, and weekly implementation reporting in a cessation scenario; * Oversee any relationships with third-party service providers relevant to client asset safe