Head of Finance

About the Role: 

This is the first finance hire for a new European payments company's Latvian entity. You will own everything that makes the regulated entity work financially: safeguarding, own funds, regulatory reporting, statutory accounts, and treasury, and be the person the regulator speaks to about it. You report to the Group CFO, with a dotted line to the entity's Managing Director. At the start, the function is you and two outsourced providers: the focus is designing controls and writing procedures, not running an established team.

What You'll Do:

• Own the safeguarding model end to end, including daily reconciliation of safeguarded funds and the safeguarding policy
• Calculate and monitor own funds and capital headroom; prepare regulatory returns to Latvijas Banka
• Own and maintain the finance inputs for the entity and the ICAAP-equivalent assessment
• Produce the entity's annual financial statements and manage the statutory audit
• Oversee outsourced bookkeeping and payroll providers; own VID filings and the ledger
• Manage liquidity, settlement and FX across account-to-account, open banking and card flows
• Own the entity's financial model, budget, forecast and product unit economics
• Build the finance control framework: authorization limits, segregation of duties, four-eyes principle

Requirements:

• Qualified accountant or equivalent finance qualification, and a degree in finance, economics, accounting or a related field
• Experience inside a regulated financial institution – EMI, payment institution, bank or investment firm
• Hands-on experience of at least one of: client money safeguarding, regulatory capital calculation, or regulatory reporting to a supervisor
• Working knowledge of the Latvian regulatory and tax environment and Latvian statutory reporting
• Professional English; Latvian at working level
• An impeccable professional reputation – the role is subject to Latvijas Banka fit-and-proper expectations

Nice to Have:

• Experience with regulatory authorizations or license management
• Payments background: settlement, scheme reconciliation, multi-currency or card issuing
• Familiarity with DORA
• Experience managing outsourced accounting and payroll providers in a regulated setting

Why Join?

• Build the finance function of a licensed institution from scratch – no legacy setup, your design
• A clear mandate: where the regulated entity's obligations conflict with the group's, the entity comes first
• AI-first payments company with a small, senior team, backed by founders who have built and scaled well-known European payment companies

We Offer:

• Salary: Base salary + Equity (Discussed at the offer stage)
• Full-time position
• Location: Riga, Latvia (hybrid, flexible remote working)