Ballerine, an AI risk intelligence platform designed to assist financial institutions, fintechs, and marketplaces in automating and optimizing their merchant onboarding, verification, and lifecycle monitoring processes, has announced the appointment of Christian A. Chmiel as its new General Manager for the EMEA region. This strategic move aims to leverage Christian's extensive experience to expand Ballerine's presence across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

Christian Chmiel brings over two decades of profound experience in risk management, compliance, and merchant oversight to his new role. Throughout his distinguished career, he has made significant contributions to the fraud prevention and payments sectors. Notably, he served as the Founder & CEO of the Web Shield Group and held the position of Deputy Head of Compliance at an acquiring bank. His leadership has been instrumental in shaping industry standards for online fraud detection and high-risk underwriting. Christian is a Certified Fraud Examiner and a Certified High-Risk Underwriter. He is also recognized as a thought leader in the space, having published insights in key industry journals, hosted conferences, and lectured at the Web Shield Academy, with his achievements acknowledged by leading organizations such as the Electronic Transactions Association (ETA) and PayTech Awards.

In his new capacity at Ballerine, Christian will be responsible for guiding the company’s efforts to support financial institutions throughout EMEA. He will focus on integrating AI-powered tools that facilitate smarter and more transparent merchant risk decisions. Christian expressed his enthusiasm for joining Ballerine during what he described as a pivotal time for risk and compliance in the financial services industry. He highlighted Ballerine as the first AI agent capable of thinking like an expert underwriter, combining regulatory knowledge with fraud intelligence to automate deep risk analysis. The platform unifies Know Your Business (KYB), web, and transaction data into a single intelligent profile, enabling real-time detection of inconsistencies, risks, and compliance gaps. For acquirers and payment providers, this translates to faster onboarding processes, smarter decisions, and the ability to confidently scale into new verticals and markets without increasing manual overhead.

Noam Izhaki, co-founder and CEO of Ballerine, underscored the value of Christian’s appointment, stating that his strong track record in risk and compliance, combined with his clear understanding of the challenges financial institutions face today, will be invaluable as Ballerine expands across EMEA. Izhaki expressed pride in having Christian on board as the company continues to help institutions make smarter, faster decisions with AI.

Ballerine is distinguished as an AI-native risk and compliance platform that empowers financial institutions, payment providers, and fintechs to make more intelligent and rapid risk decisions. Moving beyond static checks and fragmented tools, Ballerine unifies business data, fraud signals, and compliance workflows into a singular, modular infrastructure. The platform is fully customizable, allowing teams to automate specific needs, integrate seamlessly with existing systems, and adapt quickly as risk landscapes evolve. The ultimate result is faster onboarding, significantly reduced fraud, stronger compliance measures, and a dynamic risk engine that truly keeps pace with changing demands.