Sanctions, Risk and Keeping the Human in the Loop

The BIGTXN Story with Haider Mannan

The latest episode of FinTech Focus TV, hosted by Toby and recorded live at Financial Crime 360 2025, brings forward a powerful and highly relevant conversation for the global FinTech industry. This episode features Haider Mannan, Founder and CEO of BIGTXN, a business that has rapidly established itself as a leading provider of high-quality financial data for sanctions screening, digital asset monitoring, and corporate actions analysis. The discussion between Toby and Haider is a compelling exploration of product excellence, data integrity, the increasing complexity of financial crime, and the people driving innovation forward. For those invested in the future of financial technology, compliance, and the talent required to build world-class FinTech teams, this episode reveals essential insights from someone operating at the very centre of the market’s most challenging risk landscape.

FinTech Data Quality and the Origin Story Behind BIGTXN

The episode begins with Toby asking Haider to share the origin story behind the BIGTXN name, a detail that has sparked curiosity across the industry. Haider explains that BIGTXN stands for “big transaction”, with TXN representing the scientific shorthand for the word “transaction”. Because the business is built around the management and interpretation of large, complex datasets, the name perfectly encapsulates what BIGTXN represents: ownership over transaction-level intelligence and a commitment to precision across data flows. This clarity underpins the company’s purpose, especially for clients who demand absolute accuracy in the high-stakes world of financial trading, sanctions detection, and regulatory compliance.

The conversation then shifts to the evolution of the company over the last four years. Haider describes this period as a steep learning curve, not only in running a business but also in developing as a CFO who must simultaneously manage cash flows, oversee teams, and maintain technical leadership. He recalls wearing “all the hats” throughout BIGTXN’s early journey, reflecting the entrepreneurial intensity required to build a FinTech able to compete with global data vendors.

Despite these challenges, BIGTXN has grown into a business that customers trust deeply, not only for its data quality but also for its commitment to service excellence. Many FinTech recruitment clients today emphasise service standards as a key determinant of vendor selection, and Haider’s remarks reflect this shift. The quality of the product is essential, but the responsiveness, technical support, and customer-centric mindset are what differentiate category-leading businesses. In an environment where financial crime risk evolves rapidly, these elements are not simply commercial advantages, they are competitive necessities.

Why Financial Data Integrity Matters in Today’s FinTech Landscape

Haider shares that when he entered the industry in 2021, his core mission was to “disrupt quality”, believing that data accuracy within financial crime was a black-and-white issue. Either the data is right or it is not. However, he soon discovered that quality alone cannot sustain customer loyalty. What matters just as much is the service wrapped around the data, how fast a vendor can respond, how quickly issues are resolved, and whether customers feel supported across critical moments.

This customer urgency plays a defining role in BIGTXN’s value proposition. In trading environments, banks and financial institutions cannot afford delays. A sanctions query or false positive that prevents a trader from acting within the required timeframe directly impacts money made, or lost, by the institution. This underscores why FinTech recruitment increasingly demands specialists capable of understanding both technical data workflows and business-critical urgency. Teams must be able to work with precision, speed, and context.

Furthermore, Haider explains that other vendors in the market have become complacent. Some are “too big to care”, a dynamic that often emerges when organisations expand faster than their service culture can support. For clients operating in sanctions monitoring or digital asset risk, this complacency has created an opportunity for more agile and service-driven businesses like BIGTXN to step in and win market share. The conversation reveals how critical it is for FinTech companies to maintain talent that can uphold service standards even as organisations scale, an area where recruitment strategy plays a pivotal role.

FinTech Vendor Replacement and the Challenge of Breaking Market Entrenchment

Toby observes that BIGTXN operates in one of the “stickiest” areas of financial technology. Once a bank has integrated a data provider into its order management or trade management system, switching vendors becomes an intricate and sometimes risky process. Haider acknowledges this reality, emphasising that for a customer to replace an incumbent vendor, the alternative must be compelling enough to justify the disruption.

Haider outlines that BIGTXN succeeds in breaking this entrenched vendor loyalty through two main differentiators: the speed with which they react to changes and their superior detection and validation process. For sanctions monitoring, the landscape is exceptionally dynamic. The universe of impacted securities ranges into the millions, and identifying the subset subject to restrictions, often around 100,000 instruments, requires both machine-driven detection and human validation. FinTech organisations depend on highly skilled data professionals to maintain these workflows, and recruitment of such technical talent has become central to innovation and product evolution.

Haider explains that BIGTXN places enormous emphasis on eliminating “dirty data”, as false positives or inaccuracies disrupt entire trading queues. Banks cannot place trades if the system is held up by incorrect alerts. This creates moments where millions of pounds, dollars, or euros can hinge on the integrity of one data file. FinTech recruitment strategies increasingly prioritise individuals capable of maintaining this level of scrutiny, particularly across sanctions risk, AML, and digital asset monitoring roles.

Financial Crime, Data Automation, and Human Expertise Across FinTech

The conversation highlights the sophisticated blend of automation and human oversight embedded into BIGTXN’s processes. Although machine detection forms the backbone of their analytics engine, BIGTXN invests heavily in human validation, ensuring no incorrect information enters a client’s system. This hybrid model is foundational in modern FinTech recruitment, where companies require data scientists, machine learning specialists, compliance technologists, and subject matter experts who can collaborate across automated and manual quality controls.

Haider also describes the sacrifices made during the foundational years of the company, from late nights to missing personal time with family and friends. These sacrifices were essential in building the algorithms, training models through supervised learning, and ensuring that the product would scale without losing integrity. Today, BIGTXN’s systems perform at a level where clients can ingest data without pre-validating it, something only achievable when a vendor has earned deep trust through consistency.

For financial services institutions navigating constantly shifting regulatory pressures, trust is everything. Banks must feel confident that the data informing their sanctions decisions is accurate the first time, every time. This creates a market where demand for high-quality FinTech talent, especially across compliance data, reference data engineering, risk analytics, and machine learning, is rapidly increasing.

FinTech Governance, Growth, and the People Behind Product Excellence

As the conversation continues, Toby reinforces a message that resonates across the entire FinTech sector: no matter how good a product is, without the right people behind it, the product cannot reach its full potential. Haider agrees wholeheartedly, acknowledging that BIGTXN’s team has been essential in building and maintaining the company’s momentum. While some early employees moved on because they were not the right fit for the intensity of the entrepreneurial journey, the core team has remained from the beginning, forming the foundation for the company’s next phase of growth.

This point speaks directly to FinTech recruitment trends around cultural alignment, resilience, and the unique mindset required in high-growth businesses. Companies need individuals who can operate with agility, take ownership, and stay committed through the volatility of scale-up life. Haider highlights that BIGTXN has now reached a level of stability that enables them to consider doubling headcount, a decision underpinned by strategic financial planning and governance.

Haider jokes that pursuing fundraising is almost like wanting to “do something bad to yourself”, given the extensive workload, sleepless nights, and dual pressure of managing a funding round while also running the business. Yet funding is necessary to fuel innovation, expand product modules, and remain competitive in a market driven by rapid change.

Sanctions Risk, Digital Assets, and the Future of Financial Crime Technology

Later in the episode, Toby previews Haider’s upcoming appearance on stage at Financial Crime 360, where he will be interviewed by Dow Jones about sanctions risk in crypto assets and digital asset monitoring. Haider shares that he wants the audience to walk away with an understanding of the extreme complexity of the space. Digital asset markets shift rapidly, and data changes constantly. FinTech companies must detect these changes quickly and accurately to ensure traders do not accidentally trade prohibited assets, or fail to trade assets that are actually allowed.

He explains that BIGTXN processes approximately half a million corporate actions each day across a universe of roughly 40 million active securities. On extreme days, they may manage more than a million changes. This includes maturity events, delistings, suspensions, mergers, and other market movements. The sheer scale is staggering and underscores the need for advanced technology, reliable data pipelines, and expert talent capable of handling operational risk at this magnitude.

Toby reflects on the sophistication of the industry, noting that every conversation at the event highlights a new threat or challenge for financial institutions to consider. Together, vendors across the ecosystem form a community of specialists, each responsible for combating one segment of financial crime. Haider comments that although each vendor addresses a different type of threat, collectively they create a sector where purpose underpins innovation. This purpose-driven culture is a powerful draw for FinTech talent and a defining characteristic of the sector’s long-term growth trajectory.

FinTech Partnerships, Global Growth, and the Road Ahead for BIGTXN

In the final part of the episode, Haider discusses the importance of partnerships in BIGTXN’s expansion. He credits partners including Dow Jones and Star Fund Apps, whose brand strength and go-to-market capabilities have significantly amplified BIGTXN’s reach. He mentions upcoming major announcements and international engagements, including travel to Texas and Qatar, where the company will connect with global leaders in the technology industry. These milestones demonstrate BIGTXN’s growing prominence and its ability to attract high-value commercial opportunities.

Toby closes the episode by celebrating Haider’s energy, passion, and unwavering belief in what BIGTXN is building. He praises the business’s growth, the credibility the team has gained within the industry, and the purpose that drives them. As Toby notes, this episode offers a window into the mindset of a founder who has built something exceptional by combining data excellence, strong governance, and a world-class team.

Why This Episode Matters for FinTech Recruitment and Financial Crime Hiring

For organisations looking to hire within FinTech, data engineering, sanctions monitoring, digital asset compliance, or financial crime analytics, this episode of FinTech Focus TV reinforces the importance of talent capable of operating with precision, accountability, and speed. As financial crime continues to evolve, businesses must invest in teams who can design and maintain resilient data systems, uphold product integrity, and innovate in high-pressure environments.

Harrington Starr works closely with financial institutions, FinTech scale-ups, and RegTech innovators who are searching for this kind of talent every day. Episodes like this one offer valuable visibility into the demands these businesses face and the skills required to stay ahead in a highly regulated and increasingly dynamic market.

BIGTXN’s story is not only a testament to data excellence; it is a reminder that great FinTech products are built by exceptional teams. As FinTech recruitment continues to accelerate, companies that prioritise quality, capability, and culture will be best positioned to thrive.