Payments Director

Who you are

• You will bring significant leadership experience within payments, ideally gained within a bank, fintech, payments provider or similar regulated financial services environment
• You will have a strong understanding of the payments landscape and the risks associated with delivering critical payment services. You’ll be comfortable operating at the intersection of technology, operations, risk and regulation, and able to translate complex payment issues into clear decisions and outcomes
• We are looking for someone who can demonstrate:
• Deep knowledge of payment services, payment schemes and associated regulatory requirements
• Strong experience of payments risk management, controls, and governance
• Experience managing relationships with card schemes, payment networks, processors and other critical third parties
• A strong understanding of technology and operational risk within a regulated environment
• Experience leading the response to significant payment or technology incidents and driving effective remediation
• Knowledge of operational resilience and the management of critical services and third party dependencies
• Strong stakeholder management skills with the credibility to influence senior leaders, suppliers, schemes and other external parties
• The ability to provide constructive challenge while remaining pragmatic and commercially aware
• Proven experience leading and developing teams in a fast-moving environment
• You may be put off applying for a role because you don't tick every box. Forget that! So, if you're excited about working with us, but aren’t sure if you're 100% there yet, get in touch anyway. We’re on a mission to radically reshape banking – and that starts with our brilliant team. Whatever came before, we’re proud to bring together people of all backgrounds and experiences who love working together to solve problems

What the job involves

• We are looking for an experienced Payments Director to lead our Payments function and ensure that our payments services operate safely, reliably and in line with our regulatory and scheme obligations
• Sitting within Technology and reporting to the Chief IT Control Officer, this is a senior leadership role with responsibility for providing effective oversight and control of the Bank’s payments ecosystem. You will lead the Payments team, ensuring payment risks are understood and appropriately managed, regulatory and scheme requirements are met, and our critical third party relationships are effectively governed
• You will work across Technology, Operations, Risk, Compliance and the wider business providing clear ownership and leadership when issues arise and helping us maintain a resilient, well controlled payments environment as the Bank continues to grow
• Payments are at the heart of our customers’ experience and are one of the most critical services we provide
• At Starling, we want to move quickly and continue to innovate, but we also need to ensure that our payments services remain safe, resilient, compliant and well controlled
• As Payments Director, you’ll play a central role in achieving the balance. You’ll bring together technology, risk, regulation, suppliers and schemes to ensure we understand our exposures, respond effectively when things go wrong and continue to strengthen our payments capability as the bank grows
• You will provide leadership and oversight across the Bank’s payments activities, with particular responsibility for:
• Payment risk and control - ensuring risks across the payments estate are identified, assessed and effectively managed, with a strong and proportionate control environment
• Regulatory and scheme compliance - ensuring the bank understands and meets its obligations relating to payments, including applicable regulatory requirements, industry standards and payment scheme rules
• Scheme Management - owning and overseeing key relationships with payment schemes and networks, including Mastercard, ensuring obligations are met and changes, issues and risks are appropriately managed
• Supplier and third party management - providing effective oversight of critical payment suppliers and partners, ensuring appropriate performance, governance, risk management and escalation arrangements are in place
• Incident Management - providing senior leadership and oversight of payment incidents, ensuring issues are managed effectively from identification through to resolution, with appropriate stakeholder communication, root cause analysis and remediation
• Operational Resilience - ensuring payment services are resilient and recoverable, with appropriate contingency arrangements, testing and oversight of critical interdependencies
• Change and emerging risk - assessing the risk and control implications of changes to payment products, platforms, regulation, schemes and suppliers, ensuring appropriate controls are embedded from the outset
• Governance and reporting - providing clear and insightful reporting on payment risks, incident, supplier performance, compliance and emerging issues to senior management and relevant governance forums
• Leadership - leading and developing a high performing payments team, establishing clear accountability and building strong relationships across Technology and the wider bank

The application process

• Interviewing is a two way process and we want you to have the time and opportunity to get to know us, as much as we are getting to know you! Our interviews are conversational and we want to get the best from you, so come with questions and be curious. In general you can expect the below, following a chat with one of our Talent Team:
• First stage with the two members of the Payments/Cards and Tech Risk teams ~ 45 minutes
• Second stage with additional members of the Payments/Cards and Tech Risk, including the Chief Technology Risk Officer ~ 1 hour
• Final stage with the deputy CIO ~ 45 minutes

Benefits

• Time off: 25 days holiday, plus your birthday as an extra freebie. You can also opt out of bank holidays and take them when works for you!
• Health insurance: Private health insurance with Vitality Health, one of the UK's leading private medical insurers
• Pension scheme
• Paid volunteering leave: We encourage all our employees to give back. You can take up to 16 hours paid leave a year, specifically to help causes meaningful to you
• Gym & cycle to work schemes: We offer discounted gym memberships and cycle to work schemes through salary sacrifice
• Perkbox: For a wide range of retail, entertainment and leisure discounts (as well as cash back) at a huge variety of businesses