Introducing Ro Paddock as Head of AFC
Fourthline announced today the appointment of Ro Paddock as Head of Anti-Financial Crime. Her newly formed role is set to propel Fourthline's hypergrowth by optimizing AFC practices for scalability and efficiency. Ro brings experience from a near decade-long career specializing in risk and fraud across tech, retail, and financial services.
Rigorous anti-financial crime practices form the foundation of Fourthline's mission: to deliver a new standard for digital identity management and KYC. Across fraud detection and prevention, regulatory compliance, data privacy, product development and platform performance, Fourthline is committed to putting in place the most stringent measures and practices to ensure the utmost security for itself and its clients. As a licensed payments institution in the UK and the Netherlands, Fourthline has adhered to the strictest regulations across AML directives, GDPR, and beyond since its inception. Its KYC and digital identity management solutions combine proprietary technology with best-in-class expert analyses to protect regulated institutions from identity fraud, while advising on risk and compliance practices, as well.
As Fourthline continues its rapid growth, the standardization of data, documentation, workflows, processes and policies becomes increasingly critical and complex. Meanwhile, the Fourthline team aims to lead its industry in establishing an inclusive financial ecosystem that ensures safety at every level, from large financial institutions to fintechs and crytocurrency exchanges, down to the individual. Knowledge-sharing and accessible, modular fraud prevention solutions are critical to this initiative.
The team at Fourthline is poised to continue rapidly modernizing digital identity management, and thrilled to have Ro Paddock onboard. Prior to joining Fourthline, Ro held several senior management anti-financial crime roles, most recently as Head of AFC at German neobank N26, where she oversaw Know Your Customer (KYC), Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and fraud after first heading up the KYC function. Before that, Ro honed her anti-fraud experience at a diverse range of e-commerce and m-commerce companies, across which she consistently achieved an average of 90 to 95 percent reduction in fraud over a minimum of three and a maximum of nine months.
Having earned post-graduate degrees in Information Systems and Computer Forensics—along with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology—from University of Cape Town in South Africa, Ro is passionate about applying the principles of human behavior to fraud prevention. As she shared in a previous interview with Fourthline, “My background in psychology and computer forensics has really helped me in understanding both the human behavior and the data side of fraud detection. Being aware of the motivations that drive individuals to commit fraud in a variety of fascinating ways enables me to do my job better. More specifically, I have honed the ability to identify ‘behavioral traits’ through data analysis.”
Bringing a thoroughly human perspective to an increasingly automation-driven environment, Ro will help Fourthline deliver commercial solutions that stand upon technical innovatiosn driven by vast internal risk and fraud expertise. As a proven advocate for women in technology and democratization of financial security, she is an invaluable addition to the team.
“We are thrilled and honored to welcome such a knowledgeable risk and fraud expert to our team. Ro will help us optimize our AFC practices while making safe digital identity management accessible to all,” said Krik Gunning, CEO of Fourthline.
About Fourthline
Fourthline is one of Europe’s fastest growing fintech companies for digital KYC (Know Your Customer). Trusted by banks, online brokerages, insurers and leading fintechs, Fourthline verifies millions of identities for customers like N26, DeGiro, Solarisbank, Flatex, and many more. We provide best-in-class fraud detection at industry-leading conversion and compliance levels.
Our mission is to protect the online financial system by using the most innovative technologies to develop the safest and most customer friendly digital KYC solution. We share a love for fighting financial crime and building a beautiful product with a positive impact on the world.
