Head of Acquiring and Open Banking Solutions

You'll also own our traditional merchant acquiring relationships / solutions (e.g., Settle-Up / pay by card), open banking solutions (e.g., PIS / AIS) and direct debit origination and associated payouts/refunds capabilities. The role holder will work with our internal tech / product teams to compliantly build solutions, and complement our stack by bringing in leading technology service providers where appropriate.

Key Responsibilities:
Acquiring ownership
Act as the central owner for all acquiring services.
Manage the Bank’s traditional card acquiring capabilities alongside the services’ end-users in the Retail Bank, Business Bank and SBS.
Centrally manage our cost of acquiring and acquiring relationships.
Act as the business owner for merchant acquiring PCI-DSS requirements.
Manage related payout / refund / indemnity services.
Open Banking solutions
Alongside technology, run and develop our open banking Payment Initiation Services and our internal AIS capability
Act as the SME for Starling’s ASPSP participation, in particular PIS sweeping and future commercial VRP engagements
Represent Starling at key industry events and forums, in particular Bank representation at the Open Banking Founding Funders Forum and other scheme commercial VRP opportunities
Journey commercialisation
Work collaboratively with colleagues in the Business Bank / Retail Bank / SBS to take the solutions to market
Support with customer price setting (where relevant) and manage service costs
Requirements:
Essential experience
Must have run scale card acquiring relationships on the merchant side, covering PCI-DSS
Must have experience in PIS and AIS capabilities, across multiple use cases.
Must have knowledge of and experience in Direct Debit Origination services.
Strong payments vocation - must care passionately about payments, want to learn more and appetite to upgrade the Bank’s understanding
Consistently act with the highest ethical standards, ensuring decisions are always in the best interest of our customers, colleagues, and the bank. Lead by example, fostering a culture of trust and transparency across all levels.
Good to have
Experience in collaborating effectively across a variety of business areas and ability to interact effectively with all levels.
Diplomacy and emotional intelligence to build strong professional relationships at all levels
Hands-on, resilient and adaptable to a fast moving environments
Ability to communicate complex concepts and issues in a business-friendly manner to senior/executive management.
Excellent verbal and written communication skills
Benefits:
25 days holiday (plus take your public holiday allowance whenever works best for you)
An extra day’s holiday for your birthday
Annual leave is increased with length of service, and you can choose to buy or sell up to five extra days off
16 hours paid volunteering time a year
Salary sacrifice, company enhanced pension scheme
Life insurance at 4x your salary & group income protection
Private Medical Insurance with VitalityHealth including mental health support and cancer care. Partner benefits include discounts with Waitrose, Mr&Mrs Smith and Peloton
Generous family-friendly policies
Incentives refer a friend scheme
Perkbox membership giving access to retail discounts, a wellness platform for physical and mental health, and weekly free and boosted perks
Access to initiatives like Cycle to Work, Salary Sacrificed Gym partnerships and Electric Vehicle (EV) leasing

United Kingdom
England
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