Staying in one industry for nearly two decades is not simple loyalty. It means living through every shift the industry throws, learning new tools as old ones become obsolete, and adjusting to threats that look nothing like the ones one started out fighting. Few fields test that endurance the way financial crime compliance does, where the rules change almost as often as the criminals do.
Product and consulting manager Nikhil Mittal has spent close to 19 years in that world, working across financial crimes compliance, anti-money laundering, sanctions, and fraud detection.
For him, those years were never just about putting in the time. They gave him a front-row seat to how the industry actually works, the kind of understanding that only comes from staying long enough to see problems repeat, evolve, and eventually get solved. That long runway also gave him room to sharpen his craft and build the kinds of solutions that made institutions, and the people who rely on them, a little safer.
In an interview with Tech Bullion, Nikhil shares how those two decades reshaped the way he thinks about risk, the lessons he gained from his hands-on experience with various fintech companies, and what it took to add a business lens to expertise built almost entirely on the ground.
He also opens up about the moments that tested his judgment most, the collaboration skills few people talk about in this line of work, and why, even after 19 years, he still considers himself a student of an industry that shows no signs of slowing down.
Early Career and Origins
Q: Your journey describes nearly 19 years spent across financial crimes compliance, anti-money laundering, sanctions, and fraud detection. Looking back at where you started, what drew you into this field in the first place?
Answer: Growing up, I used to listen to my father talk about various frauds he had heard about in banking and financial services in India, and I always wondered how the bad actors got away with it by the time the entire system realized what had happened. Perhaps the only domain where this could happen and continue to happen for many decades.
As a Computer Science Engineer, I was very much inclined towards research, and in my second year, I successfully published my first paper at ICCC, but 9/11 changed everything. The amount of technological research it ignited all around was phenomenal. I started my skill development almost alongside the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act. I had made up my mind to be in this field and work towards building products, improving processes, bringing transformation, de-risking the banks, and participating in new technological development.
Q: You’ve stayed in this industry through every shift it’s thrown at you. What has kept you here for two decades, when so many people in this line of work move on after just a few years?
Answer: The industry has seen dramatic shifts since 9/11, following mandates under the USA PATRIOT Act. Another tectonic moment was the 2008 financial crisis, which strengthened controls to make banking more secure, plug leaks, and implement tighter regulatory actions and greater collaboration with law enforcement.
Covid and AI brought another milestone shift, and what is unfolding right now is a once-in-a-generation event that will shape and reshape how financial crimes will occur, their severity, impact, and the novel ways of pre-empting and catching them. My passion for this domain, its outcomes, technological advancements, and the real societal impact it delivers keeps my interest alive. I have been fortunate to work with really amazing, talented colleagues and clients and to be mentored by Compliance leaders from the world’s top 3 global banking institutions.
Through my alma mater, I also had the opportunity to work with amazing non-profits like NCIDEA where I mentored the founders, thus advancing the state’s mission to nurture the startup ecosystem in the Carolinas.
The Long Arc of the Career
Q: You’ve worked across Tier 1 banks, fintechs, Big Four advisory firms, and regulators. What did moving between those different vantage points teach you? How do you handle the complexities of each company?
Answer: Each seat teaches you to fear a different failure. Inside a bank, you feel legacy systems and internal governance firsthand — the thing you’re afraid of is an exam finding. In advisory, you see a dozen institutions at once but own none of them, so the discipline is fast, accurate diagnosis rather than depth — the thing you’re afraid of is being generic.
What moving between all of them taught me is that no single vantage point has the whole picture, and that most of the value I add now is translation — turning an examiner’s concern into something an engineering team can build, and turning an engineering constraint into something a compliance officer can act on before it becomes a finding.
I handle the complexity of each by not pretending they’re the same problem: a bank needs program-level prioritization and patience with its legacy debt, an advisory needs a repeatable diagnostic playbook, and a fintech needs someone willing to build a fast, viable compliance backbone before a regulator asks for it.
