Drew Davidson
BSA Officer and Head of Financial Crime · Fintech, Payments, Crypto · CAMS
A decade building and leading BSA/AML, transaction monitoring, sanctions, fraud, and KYC/KYB programs across Square, Block, Mercury, Discover, and a sponsor-bank payments fintech. Open to lead roles and advisory engagements.
Compliance leadership across fintech, payments, and crypto. I built the early compliance operations at Square, led global transaction monitoring at Block across Square seller, Cash App, international corridors, and the Bitcoin launch, ran compliance product at Mercury through the SVB-driven hypergrowth, owned payments financial crime strategy at network scale at Discover, and stood up a full BSA/AML, OFAC, fraud, and KYC/KYB program from the ground up as named BSA Officer at an early-stage payments fintech under a sponsor bank model.
The bias is toward infrastructure. Programs that scale, controls that hold up under examination, and systems compliance teams can operate without external dependency. Named inventor on filed patents for transaction monitoring. CAMS certified. Board member, Greater St. Louis ACAMS chapter.
Ranger is a compliance workbench. Transaction monitoring with tiered rule authoring, case management, SAR pipeline, sanctions screening, and KYC/KYB lifecycle on a multi-tenant architecture. It is designed so compliance teams can run their own program without external dependency.
Forrest Fintech Consulting is the advisory vehicle, a passion project for fintechs, sponsor banks, and payment platforms that want compliance infrastructure they actually own.
Lead roles
Compliance, BSA, and financial crime leadership for fintech, payments, crypto, and sponsor bank programs. Remote, hybrid, or Saint Louis. Open to discussion.
Advisory engagements
BSA Officer advisory, program design, examination readiness, sponsor bank navigation, transaction monitoring tuning, and risk assessment build-outs.
Who is Drew Davidson?
Drew Davidson is a BSA Officer and Head of Financial Crime based in Saint Louis, Missouri. He has spent a decade building and leading BSA/AML, transaction monitoring, sanctions, and KYC/KYB programs across Square, Block, Mercury, Discover, and an early-stage sponsor-bank payments fintech. He is CAMS certified.
What does Drew Davidson do?
He builds and leads financial crime compliance programs for fintech, payments, and crypto companies. His focus is compliance infrastructure, including BSA/AML program architecture, transaction monitoring, sanctions screening, KYC/KYB lifecycle, and sponsor bank oversight. He is currently building Ranger, a compliance workbench, and advises through Forrest Fintech Consulting.
Where is Drew Davidson based?
Drew Davidson is based in Saint Louis, Missouri, in the United States. He works remote, hybrid, or on-site and serves clients nationally.
What is Drew Davidson's background?
Drew has a decade of compliance leadership across fintech, payments, and crypto. He built early compliance operations at Square, led global transaction monitoring at Block, ran compliance product at Mercury, owned payments financial crime strategy at Discover, and served as named BSA Officer at an early-stage payments fintech. He is CAMS certified, a board member of the Greater St. Louis ACAMS chapter, and a named inventor on filed patents for transaction monitoring.
How can I work with Drew Davidson?
Drew is open to compliance and financial crime leadership roles and to advisory engagements covering BSA Officer advisory, program design, examination readiness, sponsor bank navigation, and transaction monitoring tuning. Reach him at contact@forrestfintechconsulting.com.
Saint Louis, Missouri