Gabriel I. Hidalgo

Gabriel Hidalgo is a senior compliance practitioner and advisor with deep regulatory and operational knowledge of banking, virtual assets and fintech. He has over 23 years of legal, BSA/AML and sanctions compliance experience in creating, implementing, remediating and updating compliance programs to exceed regulatory requirements while advising clients on industry best practices. Mr. Hidalgo previously created and led the Virtual Assets and Fintech compliance practice at K2 Integrity. In his role as practice leader, he advised clients in the banking, virtual assets, and fintech industry on BSA/AML and sanctions compliance matters. Prior to that, he was the Chief Compliance Officer for challenger bank Noble Bank International where he led compliance teams for all banking operations. In that role, he developed and implemented the compliance program platform that successfully onboarded and monitored customers with a specific focus on virtual asset and fintech client segments.

Mr. Hidalgo was also previously a Chief Compliance Officer at Community Federal Savings Bank (“CFSB”), an OCC chartered bank whose customer focus was on emerging foreign fintechs who wished to provide their products and services to U.S. customers. He led the compliance teams on both the BSA/AML and sanctions side as well as the consumer compliance side. Upon arriving at CFSB, Mr. Hidalgo successfully remediated all existing compliance issues previously detected by the OCC in 18 months. Additionally, Mr. Hidalgo was the first Global Head of Compliance for itBit (now known as Paxos), a virtual asset exchange located in New York. Under Mr. Hidalgo’s guidance, in 2015, itBit was granted the first financial institutional charter provided to a virtual asset service provider within the U.S., a Limited Purpose Trust Charter from the State of New York.

On the regulatory side, Mr. Hidalgo served almost four years with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (“FRBNY”), initially as a Senior Bank Examiner for BSA/AML and Sanctions exams and then as a Legal and Compliance Specialist embedded on the FRBNY Deutsche Bank team as the lead for regulatory compliance and legal issue review. While at the FRBNY, Mr. Hidalgo was selected by the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (“FFIEC”) to train examiners from other regulatory agencies, including the SEC, FDIC and state banking agencies, on how to conduct BSA/AML and Sanctions exams.

Mr. Hidalgo holds a B.A. in Political Science from Marist College, and a Juris Doctorate from University of Dayton Law School. He is CAMS certified since 2004 and has held his law license from the State of New York since 1998.