Coinbase names chief compliance officer

Coinbase, a digital currency exchange, has appointed Jeff Horowitz as chief compliance officer.

Horowitz joins Coinbase after spending close to 12 years at Pershing, a BNY Mellon Company, a provider of brokerage custody, clearing, and settlement solutions. For the past three years, he has served as Pershing’s managing director and global head of compliance, overseeing its regulatory and compliance programs. Prior to this role, Horowitz was the firm’s chief compliance officer and global head of anti-money laundering (AML) and compliance programs.

Before joining Pershing, Horowitz led various compliance and AML programs at Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and Salomon Brothers. He previously served as a banking regulator with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), along with twice serving as a member of FinCEN’s Bank Secrecy Act Advisory Group, Coinbase said.

“As Coinbase?—?along with the cryptocurrency space as a whole?—?grows and matures, continued regulatory compliance across all the varying jurisdictions globally will be critical,” Asiff Hirji, president and COO of Coinbase, wrote in a blog post. “Jeff’s appointment builds on the foundation laid by our chief legal and risk officer, Mike Lempres, who will now focus his resources exclusively on leading our government relations efforts. Hiring Jeff is recognition on our part that navigating compliance complexities on a global scale requires a concerted, cross-functional effort, guided by leaders with experience that spans policy, financial services, and corporate governance.”