Merchant Risk Manager

About Paysafe 
Paysafe is a leading payments platform with an extensive track record of serving merchants and consumers in the global entertainment sectors. Its core purpose is to enable businesses and consumers to connect and transact seamlessly through industry-leading capabilities in payment processing, digital wallet, and online cash solutions. With 29 years of online payment experience, an annualized transactional volume of $152 billion in 2024, and approximately 3,000 employees located in 12+ countries, Paysafe connects businesses and consumers across 260 payment types in 48 currencies around the world. Delivered through an integrated platform, Paysafe solutions are geared toward mobile-initiated transactions, real-time analytics and the convergence between brick-and-mortar and online payments. Further information is available at www.paysafe.com. 

To help us fuel accelerated growth, we are looking for a Merchant Risk Manager. 

Overview

The Merchant Risk Manager, based out of our Jacksonville, Florida office, is an integral part of Paysafe’s Merchant Risk Operations team. You will be responsible for the oversight of the Merchant Risk Investigations team, ensuring effective day-to-day operations. A key focus will be on proactively monitoring team performance to ensure SLA’s and KPI’s are met, seek opportunity to improve efficiency, support development and streamline processes for efficient use of resources.

This role plays a pivotal part in our transition to a centralized, sophisticated risk platform, helping to standardize risk processes across the Payment Processing business. The ideal candidate will bring experience of managing and implementing change.

You will also serve as a primary escalation point for internal stakeholders such as operations and customer support.

What we’re looking for 

We’re looking for a proven and experienced operations leader within the financial services sector. Ideally, they’ll have a background in risk, fraud, or payments/acquiring.

The ideal candidate will take full ownership of people management and day-to-day operational workflows. They will bring a confident, performance-driven approach, paired with a positive and enthusiastic leadership style. We’re seeking someone who can inspire and motivate teams, drive results, and maintain high morale (even in fast paced or challenging environments.)

While we have fraud and risk subject matter experts within the team who can support this individual in building their risk knowledge, we’re also looking for someone who can coach and mentor our more junior managers. This role is as much about learning as it is about leadership, and we value someone who can contribute to a culture of continuous development and collaboration.

Responsibilities:

• Own the day to day management of the merchant risk operations team ensuring schedules are set, queues are worked and all work is completed in a timely manner
• Collaborate with peers and leadership to implement system / process improvements in effort to streamline and optimize the merchant risk function
• Identify gaps in processes, opportunities for improvement and assist in the development, training, and implementation
• Aggressively observe performance of the risk team with the purpose of meeting our annual risk objectives:
• Managing and owning team performance. Investigate high risk or suspicious transaction activity with merchants, issuing banks, and cardholders to determine the proper action;
• Conduct merchant transaction, volume and chargeback activity review and analysis
• Initiate funding holds/releases within authority levels and investigate any potential losses as appropriate;
• Educate merchants on proper card acceptance and fraud prevention best practices;
• Assist with projects and training as needed
• Act as an escalation point to communicate with Executives, our Legal Department, merchants and sales offices where needed to assist;
• Compile card brand and other reporting as required to comply with Paysafe and sponsor bank requirements;
• Must be comfortable performing reviews on accounts and websites that may contain sensitive content;
• Managing the performance and output of the team 

Education & Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Business or a related field of study or relevant experience in lieu of the degree
• Five plus (5+) years of experience managing a large operational team (ideally in payments, Financial Crime, fraud or Risk)
• Knowledge of various card brand (VI, MC, AX, DI) rules and regulations desirable
• Experience using transaction monitoring and case management tools
• A self- starter that requires minimal supervision;
• Strong organizational and analytical skills;
• Ability and willingness to take escalated cases and/or merchant calls, when required
• A solid sense of ownership and accountability;
• Knowledge of MS Word, Excel, Access, navigating the web for resources;
• Excellent communication (written and verbal) and interpersonal skills;
• Strong attention to detail and ability to make real time, informed decisions;
• Ability to work in team driven environment yet work independently to complete daily expectations and deadlines
• Additional Skills
• Excellent communication and presentation skills;
• Be comfortable to work with teams in various regions and across different time zones.
• Experience working in a fast passed environment
• Ideally experience in risk, credit, financial crime in Card Payments and Acquiring