Head of Risk & Underwriting, Payments

Job not on LinkedIn

🔥 2 hours ago

🇺🇸 United States – Remote

⏰ Full Time

🔴 Lead

📋 Underwriter

👻 Ghost score 15%

What it means: the chance that no one is really hiring for this job.How to read it: 60% or higher means we think this is a ghost. Lower scores are less of a worry.How we score it: age, reposts, open roles vs team size, how fast jobs close, and whether pay is listed.Fine print: an estimate from public data, not a judgment of the company. Real jobs can score high, so treat it as a hint, not a fact.

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Manifest Financial (formerly Nerve)

WebsiteLinkedInAll Job Openings

11 - 50 employees

💳 Fintech

🤝 B2B

Fintech • B2B • Digital Media

Manifest Financial is a financial technology company providing tailored financial solutions to entrepreneurs and platforms. As a B2B2C platform, Manifest Financial addresses the business banking needs of creators and micro-businesses, simplifying financial challenges and enhancing engagement within the creator economy. The company offers various services, including peer-to-peer payments, automated savings, expense tracking, and simplified invoicing, integrating with platforms creators use. While not a traditional bank, Manifest uses partnerships to offer banking services through Grasshopper Bank, N. A. Member FDIC, such as accounts and debit cards. Manifest Financial is led by experts from the fintech and banking sectors, focusing on innovation and partnership within the creator economy.

📋 Description

• Develop, maintain, and continuously improve merchant underwriting policies, procedures, approval standards, restricted/prohibited business categories, risk matrices, and escalation protocols • Lead end-to-end underwriting for new merchant, platform, and embedded finance relationships • Evaluate business models, ownership structures, beneficial ownership, processing history, financial condition, delivery risk, industry risk, expected volume, and payout activity • Create underwriting standards for creator economy, marketplace, platform, B2B2C, high-risk, and emerging payment models • Establish approval authority levels, review requirements, exception processes, merchant risk tiers, and documentation standards • Partner with Sales, Product, Operations, Legal, and Compliance to support responsible growth • Own portfolio monitoring across transaction activity, settlement exposure, chargebacks, ACH returns, disputes, reversals, negative balances, refunds, fraud indicators, and operational risk signals • Establish volume limits, velocity controls, exposure thresholds, funding holds, reserve requirements, collateral requirements, and other risk controls • Develop periodic merchant review, enhanced due diligence, trigger-based review, and annual risk reassessment procedures • Identify portfolio trends and emerging risks, including concentration, industry, platform, delayed delivery, and merchant behavior risks • Work with Finance and Operations to address settlement failures, funding gaps, reconciliation issues, loss events, and recovery matters • Develop and oversee fraud prevention and mitigation controls across acquiring, payouts, card activity, ACH activity, account activity, and platform-based payment flows • Build escalation procedures for fraud events, high-risk activity, suspicious merchant behavior, disputes, chargebacks, return rates, and urgent partner notifications • Support incident response, containment, internal reporting, partner communication, remediation, and post-event review • Own configuration and performance of identity, KYB/KYC, underwriting, fraud, transaction monitoring, and merchant risk tools • Partner with Product, Engineering, Data, and Operations to build automated underwriting, risk scoring, risk segmentation, fraud detection, and transaction monitoring • Evaluate and implement AI, machine learning, and rules-based decisioning tools with governance, testing, documentation, and human oversight • Monitor model and rules performance, false positives, false negatives, approval rates, fraud rates, loss rates, chargeback rates, return rates, and manual review queues • Ensure risk systems provide reliable reporting, audit trails, and decision documentation • Ensure underwriting and payments risk activities align with applicable laws, regulations, card network rules, NACHA requirements, sponsor bank requirements, processor requirements, and internal policies • Serve as senior risk contact for sponsor banks, processors, vendors, auditors, and external partners • Prepare and present risk reporting, metrics, trends, loss events, portfolio issues, and recommendations to leadership and risk governance forums • Support BSA/AML, payments risk, merchant risk, and related governance documents as products, payment rails, geographies, and customer segments evolve • Partner with Compliance and Legal on suspicious activity escalation, regulatory inquiries, audits, exams, partner reviews, and third-party risk management • Review new products, payment flows, platform models, and major product changes through a risk and compliance lens before launch • Build and scale the risk and underwriting function, including policies, workflows, metrics, quality assurance, documentation, and team structure • Train internal teams on risk appetite, underwriting standards, prohibited/restricted categories, referral escalation, and responsible growth • Create practical risk guidance for Sales and Product teams • Make judgment-based decisions balancing customer experience, commercial opportunity, partner expectations, and risk • In the first 90 days, understand products, payment flows, partner requirements, customer segments, and current risk controls; assess processes, identify gaps, and establish a scaling roadmap • In the first six months, improve underwriting standards, strengthen portfolio monitoring, formalize escalation procedures, enhance reporting, and support growth with risk discipline • Build a scalable risk and underwriting function that protects Manifest, supports responsible revenue growth, strengthens partner confidence, and improves legitimate customer experience

🎯 Requirements

• 10+ years of experience in payments risk, merchant acquiring, merchant underwriting, fintech risk, fraud risk, embedded finance, payment facilitator risk, or related financial services risk roles • Significant experience underwriting and managing risk for higher-risk merchant categories, marketplaces, platforms, or complex payment flows • Strong understanding of merchant acquiring, payment processing, underwriting, settlement, reserves, chargebacks, disputes, ACH returns, fraud, and loss recovery • Deep familiarity with Visa, Mastercard, NACHA, PCI DSS, sponsor bank oversight, processor requirements, and payment facilitator or embedded finance risk requirements • Experience designing and implementing underwriting policies, risk matrices, monitoring rules, escalation procedures, and operational controls • Familiarity with BSA/AML, OFAC, KYC/KYB, suspicious activity escalation, beneficial ownership, and third-party risk management requirements • Experience working directly with sponsor banks, processors, card networks, payment facilitators, marketplaces, or embedded finance programs • Ability to make practical, well-documented risk decisions in a fast-moving environment • Strong communication skills and ability to translate complex risk, compliance, and operational issues into clear business recommendations • Experience building or scaling risk operations, underwriting workflows, QA processes, and reporting in a growth-stage business • Strong operator mindset with sound judgment, curiosity, accountability, and a sense of humor • Preferred: experience supporting creator economy, marketplace, gig economy, platform, B2B2C, or small business payment models • Preferred: experience with payment facilitator, embedded finance, sponsor bank, or banking-as-a-service program structures • Preferred: familiarity with ACH, wires, card payments, push-to-card, RTP, FedNow, and emerging payment rails • Preferred: experience implementing or managing KYB/KYC, fraud, transaction monitoring, case management, or merchant risk platforms • Preferred: experience with automated underwriting, rules engines, risk scoring, behavioral analytics, AI/ML-enabled fraud tools, or model governance • Preferred: prior experience managing audits, sponsor bank reviews, processor reviews, regulatory exams, compliance testing, or remediation plans • Preferred: experience hiring, training, and managing underwriting, fraud, or risk operations team members

🏖️ Benefits

• Equal opportunity employer • Inclusive work environment • Collaborative team environment • Opportunity to work on exciting challenges and shape the future of financial services • Opportunity to help build and scale a growing fintech business

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