Head of Payments

EMQS is a technology group that launches and scales digital subscription products globally. We are recruiting a Head of Payments to establish and lead our new payments department. This role requires an individual to build the department's infrastructure while simultaneously performing all operational tasks until a team is recruited. The core objective is to implement a many-to-many payment architecture that separates our product portfolio from our acquiring network.
 

Role Details

• Location: Remote (Global) 
• Employment Type: Full-time 
• Compensation: Competitive base salary + performance-based bonuses 
   

Key Responsibilities

1. Department Establishment and Manual Operation

• Department Creation: Design and implement the internal processes, technical workflows, and organisational structure for the new Payments unit.
• Direct Execution: Perform all functions personally during the initial phase, including merchant account applications, routing configuration, and data reconciliation.
• Technical Sovereignty: Maintain the capability to perform any task within the department's remit if staff are unavailable or technical issues arise.
   

2. Many-to-Many Infrastructure Management

• Architecture Design: Develop the logic for a scalable payment layer that allows one website to distribute transaction volume across multiple MIDs.
• Product Decoupling: Build an environment where websites are independent of specific merchant accounts to ensure that a provider outage does not stop processing for any product.
• Transaction Routing: Configure and maintain the technical logic that directs traffic based on card type, geography, and transaction value.
   

3. Acquiring Strategy and Bank Relationships

• Merchant Account Acquisition: Proactively secure new acquiring banks and Payment Service Provider (PSP) relationships to maintain a surplus of available MIDs.
• Provider Management: Act as the primary contact for external partners, negotiating commercial terms and Merchant Category Codes (MCC) to improve processing performance.
   

4. Risk and Compliance

• VAMP Management: Maintain responsibility for chargeback and fraud ratios to ensure all accounts remain below card brand monitoring thresholds, specifically the 0.9% limit.
• Dispute Management: Supervise automated alert systems to resolve disputes before they are categorised as official chargebacks.
• Volume Distribution: Coordinate with Growth managers to ensure transaction volume is distributed to mitigate risk across the acquiring network.
   

5. Data Automation and Reporting

• Automated Systems: Transfer all financial reporting from manual spreadsheets to an automated system using SQL and business intelligence tools.
• Reporting Accuracy: Audit internal databases against bank statements and marketing tools to ensure data integrity.
• Forensic Dashboards: Maintain real-time monitoring of approval rates, MID health, and net profitability.

Requirements

• Experience: 5+ years in Payment Operations or Billing Management within high-volume B2C subscription environments.
• Infrastructure Expertise: Demonstrated experience in designing and managing multi-MID and multi-URL environments.
• Technical Skills: Advanced proficiency in SQL and business intelligence software.
• Acquiring Network: A pre-existing network of acquiring banks and payment agents.
• Industry Knowledge: Expert understanding of 3D Secure protocols, card brand compliance, and payment routing.
• Language: High proficiency in spoken and written English is mandatory.
   

Example of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

• Global Approval Rate: Improvement in successful transaction volume through routing and decline management.
• MID Capacity: Maintaining a surplus of merchant accounts to support growth without interruption.
• Compliance Safety: Zero account closures resulting from exceeding fraud or chargeback thresholds.
• Reporting Efficiency: 100% reduction in manual data entry for all financial reports.
   

Competitive salary with a results driven bonus.