Chief Risk & Underwriting Officer (Payments)

We’re seeking a senior leader to own merchant risk & underwriting across our payments portfolio. You will set policy, assess risk by vertical, balance growth vs. loss, and act as the primary contact with acquirers, PSPs, card schemes, and risk vendors. Deep e-commerce/payments experience is essential.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and own the risk appetite, underwriting standards, and approval matrix per vertical (MCC, ticket size, geographies, business model).

• Lead merchant onboarding decisions end-to-end: KYB/KYC, business model diligence, financial analysis, UBO/sanctions screening.

• Set exposure controls: rolling reserves, caps, collateral, funding holds, and settlement schedules.

• Monitor the portfolio with clear KPIs (authorization & acceptance, fraud and chargeback rates, credit loss, time-to-decision) and drive continuous improvement.

• Build and tune risk tooling with Product/Engineering (rules engines, device fingerprinting, velocity checks, ML scoring, 3DS/SCA strategies).

• Own chargeback & dispute strategy; reduce ratios and false positives via alerts, representment, and merchant coaching.

• Maintain compliance with card-network rules, PSD2/SCA, PCI DSS, and internal governance/model validation.

• Act as the senior point of contact with acquiring banks, PSPs, card schemes, fraud vendors, and data providers; negotiate SLAs and remediation plans.

• Chair portfolio reviews and high-risk committees; approve/decline edge cases and escalations.

• Partner with Sales/Commercial on pricing & risk-based terms; with Finance on provisioning and loss forecasting; with Compliance/Legal on policies.

• Build and lead a high-performing team (underwriters, risk analysts, monitoring ops); coach, set OKRs, and scale processes.

• Own incident response for risk events; drive root-cause analysis and preventive controls.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in payments/e-commerce merchant risk & underwriting, including 3–5+ years in a leadership role.

• Proven delivery managing high-risk verticals and cross-border merchants, with measurable improvements in loss and acceptance.

• Expert knowledge of card-network programs (e.g., chargeback/fraud monitoring) and acquiring/PSP operations.

• Strong analytical skills (SQL/BI familiarity a plus); comfortable with model governance, A/B testing, and data-driven decisions.

• Hands-on experience with KYB/KYC, sanctions/PEP screening, fraud platforms, and chargeback tools.

• Excellent stakeholder management and negotiation with banks, PSPs, and vendors; clear executive communication.

• Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Economics, Data/Engineering, or related; advanced degree/certifications a plus.