Risk Operations Manager (Merchant Risk)

About MetaComp

MetaComp is a high-growth financial technology company providing digital payment and financial infrastructure solutions across payments, FX, digital assets, cross-border payments, card services and embedded finance.

As we continue to scale our payment and merchant ecosystem, we are looking for a Risk Operations Manager – Merchant Risk to strengthen our merchant risk management framework and ensure that merchants onboarded and transacting through our platforms remain within acceptable risk parameters.

This is a hands-on role combining merchant underwriting, transaction risk management, fraud detection, portfolio monitoring and risk operations.

Key Responsibilities

1. Merchant Risk Assessment & Underwriting

• Lead risk assessment and underwriting of new merchants across different business models, industries, jurisdictions and payment products.

• Review merchant KYB/KYC information, corporate structures, beneficial ownership, business activities, website/app presence, transaction flows and source of funds where applicable.

• Assess merchant risk across factors including:

  • Business model and industry risk

  • Geographic and jurisdictional exposure

  • Transaction characteristics and expected volumes

  • Product/service risk

  • Fraud and chargeback exposure

  • Financial and operational risk

  • Regulatory and reputational risk

  • AML/CFT and sanctions-related risk indicators

• Establish appropriate merchant risk ratings, transaction limits, reserves, velocity controls and other risk mitigation measures.

• Escalate high-risk or unusual merchants to Risk/Compliance for enhanced due diligence or approval.

2. Ongoing Merchant Monitoring

• Monitor the merchant portfolio to identify changes in business activity, transaction patterns and emerging risk indicators.

• Conduct periodic and event-driven merchant reviews based on risk level and predefined triggers.

• Identify unusual changes in:

  • Transaction volume

  • Average transaction size

  • Refund rates

  • Chargeback rates

  • Geographic distribution

  • Payment methods

  • Customer behaviour

  • Product/service mix

• Investigate merchants whose actual transaction behaviour materially deviates from their approved business profile.

• Recommend appropriate actions including enhanced monitoring, transaction restrictions, temporary suspension or termination.

3. Fraud & Transaction Risk Management

• Develop and operate merchant-level transaction risk controls to detect potential fraud, abuse and suspicious activity.

• Work with Risk Product / Engineering teams to develop and optimise transaction monitoring rules, risk thresholds and automated alerts.

• Analyse transaction patterns and merchant behaviour to identify emerging fraud typologies.

• Investigate suspicious transaction activity and determine appropriate operational actions.

• Monitor fraud losses, chargebacks, refunds and other merchant-related risk metrics.

• Identify opportunities to improve detection accuracy while minimising false positives and unnecessary friction for legitimate merchants.

4. Chargeback & Payment Risk

• Monitor merchant chargeback, dispute, refund and fraud performance.

• Identify merchants with deteriorating payment performance and proactively implement remediation measures.

• Establish risk thresholds and escalation triggers for high-chargeback or high-refund merchants.

• Work with Payments Operations, Finance and Commercial teams on merchant remediation and loss recovery.

• Analyse root causes of payment disputes and recommend preventive measures.

5. Risk Operations & Case Management

• Own day-to-day merchant risk investigations and ensure cases are reviewed and resolved within defined SLAs.

• Establish clear investigation procedures, escalation matrices and decision-making frameworks.

• Maintain complete and auditable documentation of merchant risk decisions.

• Ensure consistent application of risk policies across merchant onboarding, monitoring and remediation.

• Conduct quality assurance reviews to identify gaps in risk decisions and operational processes.

• Support incident management and urgent merchant risk escalations.

6. Risk Policy, Controls & Process Improvement

• Develop and continuously improve merchant risk policies, procedures and operational playbooks.

• Define merchant risk segmentation and risk appetite criteria together with Risk and Compliance leadership.

• Review existing controls and identify opportunities for automation and process optimisation.

• Partner with Product, Engineering and Data teams to enhance merchant risk tooling and dashboards.

• Support the development of automated merchant risk scoring and decisioning frameworks.

• Conduct periodic reviews of risk rules to ensure they remain effective against evolving fraud and payment risk patterns.

7. Risk Analytics & Reporting

• Develop and maintain merchant risk dashboards and management reporting.

• Monitor key risk indicators including:

  • Merchant approval / rejection rates

  • High-risk merchant volumes

  • Fraud rates

  • Chargeback rates

  • Refund rates

  • Transaction decline rates

  • Risk alert volumes

  • Loss rates

  • Merchant concentration risk

  • Risk review turnaround time

• Provide regular portfolio risk reporting and insights to senior management.

• Identify emerging trends and recommend appropriate risk appetite or control adjustments.

8. Cross-Functional Stakeholder Management

• Work closely with Compliance / AML, Payments Operations, Product, Engineering, Finance, Sales and Customer Support to manage merchant risk.

• Partner with Commercial teams to balance business growth with appropriate risk controls.

• Provide risk guidance during the launch of new merchant products, payment methods, markets and business models.

• Act as a key risk escalation point for complex merchant cases.

• Support internal audits, compliance reviews and regulatory examinations relating to merchant risk management.

Requirements

Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Risk Management, Finance, Business, Economics, Accounting, Data Analytics or a related discipline.

• 5–8 years of relevant experience in merchant risk, payment risk, fraud risk, transaction monitoring, acquiring, payment operations, fintech or financial services.

• Experience managing merchant onboarding and ongoing merchant risk monitoring is highly preferred.

• Experience in a payment institution, PSP, acquirer, fintech, bank, card network or digital asset company is advantageous.

• Strong understanding of merchant fraud, payment risk and chargeback management.

• Experience managing risk operations teams or leading risk operations projects is preferred.

Technical & Analytical Skills

• Strong ability to analyse large volumes of transactional and merchant data.

• Comfortable working with risk dashboards, transaction monitoring systems and case management tools.

• Strong Excel/Google Sheets skills; SQL, BI or data analytics experience is a strong advantage.

• Ability to translate data and risk signals into clear operational decisions.

• Experience designing risk rules, thresholds, scoring models or monitoring frameworks is preferred.

Risk Knowledge

Strong understanding of several of the following:

• Merchant underwriting

• KYB/KYC and merchant due diligence

• Fraud detection and prevention

• Transaction monitoring

• Chargeback and dispute management

• Payment fraud

• Merchant monitoring

• AML/CFT risk

• Sanctions and adverse media risk

• Risk-based merchant segmentation

• Payment processing and acquiring

• Digital payment / fintech risk

Knowledge of Singapore's payment services regulatory environment and MAS AML/CFT requirements is an advantage. MAS expectations include ongoing monitoring of business relationships and scrutiny of transactions against a customer's known business and risk profile.

Competencies

• Strong risk judgement – able to make sound decisions under uncertainty and balance commercial considerations with risk appetite.

• Analytical thinking – able to identify patterns and connect seemingly unrelated risk indicators.

• Attention to detail – strong discipline in reviewing merchant information and documenting decisions.

• Problem solving – able to investigate complex merchant and transaction issues independently.

• Ownership – takes accountability for risk decisions and operational outcomes.

• Communication – able to explain risk decisions clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

• Stakeholder management – comfortable challenging business stakeholders when risk concerns arise.

• Execution-oriented – able to operate effectively in a fast-paced, high-growth environment.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

• Merchant risk review SLA achievement

• Accuracy and consistency of merchant risk decisions

• Fraud loss rate / merchant fraud exposure

• Chargeback and dispute rate

• High-risk merchant identification effectiveness

• False-positive rate of risk controls

• Risk incident response and resolution time

• Quality and completeness of merchant risk documentation

• Effectiveness of merchant monitoring controls

• Reduction in preventable merchant-related losses

• Timely implementation of risk control enhancements

• Successful automation and process improvement initiatives

What We Offer

• Opportunity to build and scale merchant risk operations within a high-growth fintech environment.

• Exposure to payments, cross-border transactions, digital assets and emerging financial products.

• High level of ownership and direct exposure to senior Risk, Compliance, Product and Business stakeholders.

• Opportunity to build and improve merchant risk frameworks, processes and technology from the ground up.

• Fast-paced, international and highly collaborative working environment.