PayPal's Financial Crimes Division Is Seeking a Blockchain Expert

Payment giant PayPal is seeking a blockchain expert to help identify use cases for the tech in the prevention of financial crimes.

According to a job opening posted late last month, the firm wants to hire a director of anti-money laundering (AML) and blockchain strategy. The new staffer at PayPal’s New York City office would be responsible for “evaluating blockchain use cases with an eye towards financial crimes risk management and overseeing AML investigative activities and emerging trends in this space,” the ad states.

The new director will also assess risks related to the companies in PayPal’s blockchain-related portfolio and “lead external partner diligence meetings related to blockchain opportunities and potential.” The successful candidate will need to be a compliance professional with no fewer than 10 years of experience.

PayPal has already been expressing interest in blockchain-based compliance initiatives. Last April it invested in Cambridge Blockchain, a startup using distributed ledger for managing sensitive data. PayPal chose to invest in Cambridge Blockchain “because it is applying blockchain for digital identity in a way that we believe could benefit financial services companies including PayPal,” a company spokesperson told CoinDesk at the time. 

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Late last year, it also joined a funding round for crypto banking compliance startup Initialized Capital. The payments giant had been an early member of the Libra Association but later withdrew its support from Facebook’s crypto initiative. 

PayPal has been actively researching blockchain technology. Last year, it won a patent for a tool detecting crypto-extorting ransomware and mitigating its damage. The company has been also looking into ways to make crypto payments faster.

The payments firm has been watching the crypto industry closely for years, launching an option for merchants to accept bitcoin as early as 2014. It also added Wences Casares, CEO of Xapo and an early bitcoin advocate, to its board of directors in 2016. However, the company has been publicly maintaining a “blockchain, not bitcoin” stance towards the technology.