Senior Payments Risk Manager

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

📋 Description

• Proactively oversee Phoenix's portfolio of active merchants to identify emerging financial, fraud, operational, and compliance risks.

• Evaluate transaction volume and velocity, processing trends and anomalies, chargeback and dispute activities, fraud patterns, refund activities, merchant performance, processing behavior changes, and other elevated-risk indicators.

• Detect unusual patterns early and assess when a more in-depth investigation or intervention is necessary.

• Take ownership of investigations into potentially concerning merchant or transaction activities.

• Analyze transaction data, processing history, merchant behavior, and additional information to comprehend what is occurring and why.

• Manage investigations from the initial signal through to resolution, documenting findings and offering data-driven recommendations to Payments leadership.

• Suggest risk mitigation strategies including reserves or reserve adjustments, funding holds, processing limits, enhanced monitoring, fraud controls, merchant remediation, additional documentation or diligence, and escalation to processors, acquiring partners, or internal leadership.

• Monitor chargeback and fraud trends at both the portfolio and merchant levels, investigate root causes, and collaborate with internal teams on mitigation strategies.

• Enhance risk alerts, monitoring rules, investigation workflows, reporting and dashboards, escalation processes, and risk tooling and automation.

• Work in collaboration with Payments leadership, Underwriting, Client Success, Product, Engineering, Operations, and Compliance.

• Deliver findings and recommendations to aid in merchant communication and resolution; this role is not primarily client-facing.

• Offer guidance to other team members as required; people management is not the primary focus.

⛳️ Requirements

• A minimum of 5 years of experience in payments risk, merchant risk, transaction monitoring, fraud, merchant acquiring, or related payments functions.

• Experience in monitoring active merchant portfolios and transaction activities.

• Strong investigative abilities to identify unusual patterns, determine root causes, and recommend suitable actions.

• Experience in analyzing transaction data, processing trends, chargebacks, disputes, fraud, and other merchant risk indicators.

• Solid understanding of merchant acquiring and the payments lifecycle.

• Familiarity with risk controls such as reserves, funding holds, processing limits, enhanced monitoring, or merchant remediation.

• Capability to independently manage investigations from initial signal through to findings and recommendations.

• Strong analytical judgment and meticulous attention to detail.

• Ability to prioritize tasks and adapt quickly as new risks or merchant issues arise.

• Comfortable navigating ambiguity instead of solely relying on established processes or SOPs.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.

• Ability to excel in a fast-paced, high-growth environment.

• Preferred: experience with high-risk ecommerce, DTC, subscription, nutraceutical, digital goods, or other elevated-risk merchant portfolios.

• Preferred: experience within a PayFac, processor, acquirer, ISO, payment gateway, or embedded payments platform.

• Preferred: experience managing a large portfolio of active merchants.

• Preferred: experience with chargeback monitoring and fraud investigations.

• Preferred: experience building or enhancing transaction-monitoring rules, alerts, dashboards, or investigation workflows.

• Preferred: experience utilizing data and analytics tools to identify portfolio-level risk trends.

• Preferred: experience in a startup or high-growth payments environment.

• Preferred: experience mentoring or guiding junior risk analysts.

🏝️ Benefits

• Competitive salary and performance-based bonuses.

• Comprehensive health and wellness benefits.

• Opportunities for professional development and career growth.

• Flexible work arrangements and a supportive work culture.