Christopher Gunias

Christopher “Chris” Gunias is a Bates Consulting Expert who has 18 years of experience building Bank Secrecy Act (BSA)/AML programs for large and complex organizations including First Data Corporation, Western Union, and WorldRemit. Chris has held various leadership positions in BSA/AML Regulatory Compliance, Risk Management, Audit, and Information Governance. Before joining the Financial Services Industry in 2001, Chris was an Intelligence Analyst in the U.S. Navy for 6 years.

During his career, Chris has developed and managed the creation of BSA/AML functions, including transaction monitoring, OFAC & sanction monitoring, quality assurance, risk assessments, internal audit, regulatory exam management, compliance training, implemented internal controls and served as a compliance expert for a number of Boards.   While at WorldRemit Chris built a world class multi-regional international compliance / AML department over the course of 3 years, growing from a staff of 4 to more than 50, while maintaining high-quality standard during a period of 10 percent month-over-month transaction growth and multiple state regulatory examinations.

Throughout his long career in financial services, Chris has worked in areas such as AML/CTF and BSA Compliance, Quality Assurance Management, Training. Auditing, Privacy and Information Governance Compliance, Risk Compliance (GRC), Project Management (Agile and Waterfall), Regulatory Licensing and OFAC and Sanctions Compliance, and Risk Management and Mitigation. He has assisted several traditional money transmitters and crypto dealers / exchanges fintech startup’s build BSA/AML compliant compliance programs including writing policies and procedures, developing internal controls, conducted their risk assessments, and assisted them in securing banking relationships.