Compliance Lead, Vietnam - Global Payment

About the Team

In line with ByteDance's globalization plans, there has been an increasing demand for payment services and financial services such as BNPL to: (1) enhance and support our current business needs; and (2) increase our service offerings to the end user. As such, the need for payment services has gradually increased in our overseas business development strategy. Whether it's paying money to creators/users to encourage user growth, or offering paid services to users, payments have become an important step in our integrated service offerings.

About the role

We are looking for a Senior Compliance Expert to own the compliance function for GP's Vietnam business, with a particular focus on our P2P lending sandbox entity and adjacent payment and lending products. A significant part of the mandate is to advise on and lead compliance workstream in partnership projects with local credit institutions and other licensed partners, through which GP delivers financial services to users in Vietnam: shaping the structure so it holds up against applicable licensing perimeter, negotiating the compliance and AML/CFT terms, and carrying the workstream from structuring through regulatory approval to launch.

This is not a policy-drafting seat. Delivery for Vietnam depends on product, engineering, operations, risk, legal and finance teams sitting in regional and global functions, none of whom report into this role, alongside external counterparties including credit institutions and intermediary payment service providers. The role is accountable for driving all of them to a single regulatory outcome: defining clearly what the regulator and the approved dossier require, securing commitment from the teams who own delivery, and verifying that what goes live matches what was approved. We are therefore looking for someone whose track record is built on coordination and execution, not only on advisory work.

This role will be based onsite at our office and will require a 5-day onsite work arrangement.

Responsibilities

Licensing execution & cross-functional coordination

• Act as single accountable owner for the Vietnam regulatory workstream, drive delivery through regional and global product, engineering, operations, risk, legal and finance teams.
• Make regulatory requirements legible and actionable to teams, and make the case for prioritisation against competing market demands.
• Primary compliance interface with the licensing partners, State Bank of Vietnam and other authorities.
• Lead compliance workstreams on license applications, sandbox admissions, renewals and variations, including dossier preparation, regulator Q&A cycles, and remediation of conditions.
• Own the regulatory approval path for each partnership, including filings, notifications or no-objection steps required before go-live.

Partnership with credit institutions

• Lead the compliance workstream on partnership projects with local credit institutions and licensed partners.
• Act as primary compliance advisor to the business: answer interpretation questions, review proposed commercial terms and product flows and advise on viable options.
• Assess proposed structures against the licensing perimeter and applicable lending, payment and data requirements.
• Conduct documented regulatory risk assessment for each partnership, covering licensing, AML/CFT, consumer protection, data protection and outsourcing risk.
• Escalate where residual risk exceeds the agreed appetite, where a structure requires a position that is untested with the regulator, or where a partner or internal team cannot meet a control commitment.

AML/CFT and MLRO duties

• Own the AML/CFT programme end to end: risk assessment and EWRA, customer due diligence and enhanced due diligence, sanctions and PEP screening, transaction monitoring, alert investigation, and suspicious transaction reporting.
• Discharge MLRO statutory duties for the P2P entity, including filings with the authority, and act as the entity's POC on financial crime matters.

Governance and BAU

• Develop, maintain and localize compliance policies, procedures and control standards.
• Track regulatory developments affecting lending, payments and data, assess business impact, and drive required changes.
• Manage regulatory examinations, internal audits and group compliance reviews, including remediation tracking.
• Build and maintain the Vietnam obligations register and compliance monitoring plan.
• Translate regulatory requirements and dossier commitments into clear, written implementation requirements that product, engineering and operations teams can build against: customer onboarding and eKYC flows, disbursement and collection flows, transaction monitoring rules, record keeping, disclosures and consent architecture.
• Issue guidance and answer interpretation questions from delivery teams throughout the build.
• Review and sign off on solution designs, UAT scenarios and control test results prepared by the owning teams.

Minimum Qualifications

• Law degree with 5+ years in legal, compliance or regulatory roles, including time owning a workstream. Law firm, in-house, or a mix.
• Track record of taking a regulated project or transaction from documentation through to completion, with concrete examples of where it stalled and how it was unblocked.
• Proven ability to coordinate partners and internal functions, and to secure firm commitments from stakeholders who do not report to you.
• Ability to turn regulatory requirements into clear written specifications for non-legal delivery teams, and to review their output critically.
• Working knowledge of AML/CFT and the ability to own the programme end to end, including CDD, screening, transaction monitoring and STR filing.
• Experience owning written engagement with a Vietnamese authority, including submissions and Q&A cycles.
• Strong analytical and drafting skills, and the judgement to escalate rather than absorb.

Preferred Qualifications

• Knowledge of Vietnamese lending and payments regulation: P2P sandbox, non-cash payment and intermediary payment services, credit institution requirements, personal data protection.
• Experience at a P2P platform, consumer finance company, bank, e-wallet or IPS provider in Vietnam.
• Experience at a financial regulator or supervisory authority.
• Exposure to BNPL, embedded lending, or multi-party white-label structures.
• Experience in a cross-border organisation where compliance decisions sit partly outside the local market.