Senior Director of Underwriting, Fraud Monitoring, Boarding

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in United States.

📋 Description

• Oversee the daily processes of merchant onboarding, underwriting, exception management, and continuous risk monitoring for merchants.

• Manage a team of underwriters, risk analysts, and boarding specialists to support payments and lending applications.

• Revamp the onboarding process utilizing AI-driven straight-through approval, intelligent exception handling, and human assessments where necessary.

• Establish and implement risk appetite, credit policies, exposure limits, approval guidelines, delegated authority workflows, escalation procedures, and governance reporting.

• Collaborate with Product, Engineering, Compliance, Finance, Sales, vendors, sponsor banks, and processors on policies, workflows, integrations, reporting, audits, and policy alignment.

• Enhance KYB/KYC processes, business verification, beneficial ownership assessments, sanctions/PEP screening, fraud detection, bank/transaction data analysis, and decision orchestration technology.

• Deploy AI-assisted document review systems that provide auditable outputs and human decision workflows.

• Maintain automated decision-making controls, document decision logic, track overrides, ensure quality assurance, and conduct performance reviews.

• Develop the underwriting operating model for future embedded lending products.

• Collaborate with Finance on portfolio performance analysis, loss forecasting, vintage assessments, reserve modeling, pricing inputs, and lending program economics.

• Create servicing-side risk controls, establish early-warning signals, and develop collections strategies and loss mitigation plans.

• Oversee transaction surveillance, chargeback and return analytics, behavioral anomaly detection, fraud indicators, ACH return trends, and monitoring for credit deterioration.

• Develop executive and sponsor-bank dashboards and exposure reporting systems.

• Lead response strategies for fraud rings, processor errors, funding disputes, NSF issues, and merchant agreement violations.

• Ensure adherence to NACHA, BSA/AML, OFAC regulations, card brand guidelines, state lending laws, and sponsor bank requirements.

• Build, coach, and expand teams across underwriting, boarding operations, risk analytics, and portfolio monitoring.

• Convert risk strategy into quantifiable SLAs and KPIs.

⛳️ Requirements

• A minimum of 8 years of relevant experience in payments risk, merchant underwriting, boarding operations, credit risk, or financial services operations, including at least 3 years in a leadership role or managing significant operational workstreams.

• Extensive knowledge of merchant underwriting processes, including KYB/KYC, beneficial ownership, financial statement analysis, exposure modeling, MCC/industry risk, and chargeback economics.

• Proven success in modernizing outdated boarding processes through automated decision-making, vendor orchestration, and straight-through processing.

• Practical experience with KYB/KYC, fraud detection, bank data aggregators, accounting connectors, and decision orchestration vendors.

• Familiarity with card brand regulations, NACHA, BSA/AML, OFAC, and operating requirements of sponsor banks.

• Experience working in major card processor and sponsor bank environments.

• Proficient in SQL and comfortable analyzing portfolio data, model outputs, and conclusions drawn by analysts.

• Ability to utilize AR/invoice data, payer behavior, accounting system data, or transaction flows for underwriting, monitoring, or exception handling.

• Capability to implement auditable automation and AI workflows with necessary human oversight.

• Excellent communication skills for articulating underwriting decisions, operational trade-offs, risk trends, and exceptions to senior stakeholders.

• Preferred or advantageous experience in lending, launching/scaling lending products, AI/ML risk decisioning platforms, B2B/accounts receivable payments, embedded finance, vertical SaaS, model risk management, sponsor bank audits, regulatory examinations, lending economics, and multi-jurisdiction operations.

🏝️ Benefits

• Competitive salary and performance-based bonuses.

• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance.

• Flexible work hours and remote work options.

• Opportunities for professional development and career growth.

• Engaging work environment with a focus on innovation and collaboration.