Head of Payment Operations

Job Title

Head of Payment Operations

Job Description

Job title

Head of Payment Operations

Job description

Payments are an integral part of the service we deliver to clients to facilitate payments on and off client accounts. This role will take responsibility for the following areas within Payments:

• The line management of the global Payment Operations teams (Australia, India and UK).
• Responsibility for the management of our payment vendors and commercial relationships.
• Supporting the development of the payments product.

The role will report into the Head of Client Operations.

What you'll do

Lead the global team

• Lead Payment Operations across the UK, India and Australia, driving consistent standards, coverage and service quality across time zones.
• Set clear performance expectations, develop your leadership layer and build succession into critical roles.
• Coach and mentor across the wider team, raising technical payments capability alongside management capability.

Own the vendor and commercial agenda

• Own the payments vendor strategy end to end: selection, negotiation, performance management and exit.
• Manage the payments vendor budget and hold providers to their commercial and service commitments.
• Reduce cost per transaction through routing, method mix, pricing and contract renegotiation, with a clear evidence base behind every decision.

Shape the product

• Act as business sponsor for payments change, from problem definition through to benefit realisation.
• Set and maintain a payments roadmap spanning automation, open banking and instant rails, alternative payment methods and new market entry.
• Work with Engineering and Product to secure and defend the delivery capacity that roadmap needs.

Run a controlled operation

• Own the control environment for payments, with particular focus on the protection of client money and on obligations across our regulated entities.
• Partner closely with Financial Crime, Fraud and Compliance on payment-related risk, including account takeovers.
• Own audit and regulatory findings within the function and close them at root cause.

Turn payments data into decisions

• Define and report the metrics that matter: authorisation and acceptance rates, cost to serve, straight-through processing, reject and failure reasons, time to fund and time to withdraw.
• Use that reporting to change what the business does, and make the case to senior stakeholders who do not work in payments.

Who you are

Essential

• Substantial experience leading payment operations in a regulated financial services environment, including accountability for teams in more than one location.
• Deep, practical understanding of payment rails, card acquiring and issuing, open banking and the architecture behind them.
• A track record of commercial ownership: negotiating with vendors, managing a budget and delivering cost reduction you can point to.
• Strong risk judgement, particularly around client money protection, and the confidence to hold a control when it matters.
• Excellent analytical skills. You are comfortable in large transaction datasets and you build the argument yourself rather than waiting for someone to build it for you.
• Credibility with senior stakeholders and the communication skills to make a complex payments problem land with a non-specialist audience.
• A structured approach to identifying, defining and prioritising work, and the discipline to sequence it.

Desirable

• Payment operations experience in trading, brokerage or another high-volume, high-velocity consumer financial services environment.
• Exposure to alternative payment methods, stablecoins and digital asset rails.
• Experience applying automation and AI-enabled operating models to operational processes.
• Familiarity with multi-jurisdictional regimes (FCA, ASIC, DFSA or equivalent).

Number of openings

1