Independent financial crime(1) & compliance consultant for fintechs, banks & other regulated firms.

(1) AML/CFT, fraud, sanctions, KYC

Approach

Portrait of Magnus Morel
Magnus Morel · Tallinn, EE

I find where controls aren’t doing what they were designed to do, and design the fixes across compliance, product and engineering. The result: processes people can actually follow, and compliance that is efficient, reliable and regulator-ready.

5+ yrs at Wise
AML/CFT, fraud and KYC for the EU entity
1st + 2nd line
Operations and oversight, both sides of the control
Product-minded
Fixes delivered with product and engineering, not just written up
Industry-trained
ACAMS certificates in financial crime risk assessment, CFT and AML for fintech
AML/CFT/typologies/Transaction monitoring/fraud/KYC/CDD/EDD/AML/CFT/typologies/
sanctions/Risk assessment/PEPs/SAR/remediation/Control testing/sanctions/Risk assessment/

What I do

Select a service for details
Signature work

Remediation, from finding to closure.

Regulator findings, audit points or a backlog that’s got away from you: I plan it, run it and evidence it, across operations and oversight.

Operations

Hands-on capacity when volumes or backlogs outgrow the team.

  • Periodic and trigger-based reviews, EDD refreshes and remediation of legacy customer files, including high-risk customers and PEPs.

  • Live alert and case investigations, backlog clearance and transaction monitoring lookbacks, with evidenced decisions and root-cause fixes to rules and tuning so backlogs don’t return.

  • Clear, well-evidenced suspicious activity reports, written to the standard your FIU expects, with review and sign-off under authority delegated by your MLRO.

  • QA across reviews, investigations and SARs, with structured feedback that lifts the whole team.

Oversight

Second-line work that stands up to a regulator.

  • Turn findings into a plan with owners and milestones, then run delivery and assemble the closure evidence.

  • Business-wide and customer risk assessments, built to what regulators expect and usable by the teams that run them.

  • Map policy to controls to evidence, and find where processes and automated flows aren’t doing what they were designed to do.

  • Decision standards, escalation paths and QA frameworks that keep suspicious activity reporting timely and consistent.

  • Board-ready policies, turned into procedures people can actually follow.

  • Applies in — days · --:--:--

    Gap analysis against the EU AML Regulation and a practical roadmap to be ready before it applies on 10 July 2027.

Product Compliance

Financial crime controls built into products, not bolted on.

  • Bring financial crime requirements into product discovery, so launches don’t stall at compliance review.

  • Map money laundering, terrorist financing, fraud and sanctions-evasion typologies onto your products and payment flows, and onto the controls that should catch them.

  • Rules, workflows and tooling built with product and engineering, with AI doing the heavy lifting where it makes sense and people keeping the decisions.

How pricing works

No hourly rates. No surprises.

One fixed price, agreed upfront, that you can budget, approve and plan around.

The usual wayHow I work
Hourly ratesFixed price, agreed upfront
Open-ended scopeDefined deliverables
Estimates that need topping upOne number for your budget
“It depends” on timelinesAgreed start and end dates
Surprise invoicesNothing extra without your OK

How an engagement works

From first call to handover.

  1. Intro call

    30 minutes, free. We talk through the problem, the context and what good looks like.

  2. One-page proposal

    Within 2 working days: scope, deliverables, fixed price and timeline, on one page. A number you can take straight to budget approval.

  3. Delivery

    Weekly check-ins, so you always know where things stand.

  4. Handover

    Documentation and walkthroughs your team can run with once the engagement ends.

Need a second pair of eyes on your controls?

Let’s talk.

Ready when you are.

LinkedInmagnus-morel
Based inTallinn, Estonia · available across the EU
Works withFintechs, banks & other regulated firms