Head of Payment Acceptance Servicing - BPL

Barclays Bank Plc; City Of London; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading global financial institution in London is seeking a Senior Director for Payments Acceptance Servicing. This role involves driving the strategic direction of the servicing department and improving customer experience across touchpoints. The ideal candidate will have a deep understanding of industry trends and exceptional leadership skills. Key responsibilities include overseeing operations and managing a high-performing team, contributing to strategic initiatives that align with company goals.

Qualifications

• Demonstrated expertise in leading strategic initiatives.
• Ability to negotiate with stakeholders at a senior level.
• Experience in driving customer experience improvement.

Responsibilities

• Drive the strategic direction of the servicing department.
• Oversee daily operations related to merchant onboarding and issue resolution.
• Lead, manage, and mentor the servicing team for high performance.

Skills

Visionary leadership

Analytical skills

Customer service delivery

Collaboration

Education

Extensive industry knowledge

Job description

To contribute to and enhance NPS by improving customer experience across touchpoints, ensuring experience and messaging is consistent and customer centric. Includes customer journey mapping to identify areas for improvement, refining customer interactions,

Customer Experience Mapping

• Mapping and analysing the customers journey across all touchpoints including key interactions, pain points and identify opportunities for improvement in the customer experience.
• Development of customer personas to personalise their experience based off demographics, behaviour and needs.
• Development and implementation of strategies to improve customer satisfaction, loyalty and other customer KPI's, as needed.
• Collaboration with teams across the bank to ensure consistent and positive customer experiences throughout their journey.
• Implement consistency in messaging and branding across all customer-facing channels, where applicable.

Director Expectations

• To manage a business function, providing significant input to function wide strategic initiatives. Contribute to and influence policy and procedures for the function and plan, manage and consult on multiple complex and critical strategic projects, which may be business wide..
• They manage the direction of a large team or sub-function, leading other people managers and embedding a performance culture aligned to the values of the business. Or for an individual contributor, they lead organisation wide projects and act as deep technical expert and thought leader, identifying new ways of working and collaborating cross functionally. They will train, guide and coach less experienced specialists and provide information affecting long term profits, organisational risks and strategic decisions..
• Provide expert advice to senior functional management and committees to influence decisions made outside of own function, offering significant input to function wide strategic initiatives.
• Manage, coordinate and enable resourcing, budgeting and policy creation for a significant sub-function.
• Escalates breaches of policies / procedure appropriately.
• Foster and guide compliance, ensure regulations are observed that relevant processes in place to facilitate adherence.
• Focus on the external environment, regulators, or advocacy groups to both monitor and influence on behalf of Barclays, when appropriate.
• Demonstrate extensive knowledge of how the function integrates with the business division / Group to achieve the overall business objectives.
• Maintain broad and comprehensive knowledge of industry theories and practices within own discipline alongside up-to-date relevant sector / functional knowledge, and insight into external market developments / initiatives.
• Use interpretative thinking and advanced analytical skills to solve problems and design solutions in often complex/ sensitive situations.
• Exercise management authority to make significant decisions and certain strategic decisions or recommendations within own area.
• Negotiate with and influence stakeholders at a senior level both internally and externally.
• Act as principal contact point for key clients and counterparts in other functions/ businesses divisions.
• Mandated as a spokesperson for the function and business division.

Leadership Behaviours and Values

All Senior Leaders are expected to demonstrate a clear set of leadership behaviours to create an environment for colleagues to thrive and deliver to a consistently excellent standard. The four LEAD behaviours are: L - Listen and be authentic, E - Energise and inspire, A - Align across the enterprise, D - Develop others. All colleagues will be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Values of Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence and Stewardship - our moral compass, helping us do what we believe is right. They will also be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Mindset - to Empower, Challenge and Drive - the operating manual for how we behave.

Payments Acceptance Servicing

This senior-level position demands a visionary leader who can drive the strategic direction of the servicing department, ensuring alignment with the company's core values and long-term goals. The ideal candidate will possess a deep understanding of industry trends, exceptional leadership skills, and a proven track record of delivering outstanding customer service. They will be responsible for fostering a culture of excellence, innovation, and continuous improvement, while also managing and developing a high-performing team. The role requires a proactive mindset, strong analytical abilities, and the capacity to navigate complex challenges with agility and resilience.

• Develop and execute the servicing strategy to ensure exceptional client experience and satisfaction across all merchant accounts.
• Lead, manage, and mentor the servicing team to deliver high performance and support professional growth.
• Oversee daily operations related to merchant onboarding, maintenance, and issue resolution.
• Establish and monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) to drive service excellence and operational efficiency.
• Collaborate with sales, product, risk, and technology teams to optimize end-to-end merchant servicing processes.

Business Context

Barclays' payments acceptance business provides critical infrastructure to the UK economy, processing billions of pounds of payments annually for both small businesses and domestic and international corporate clients. In April 2025, we announced a long-term partnership with Brookfield Asset Management to grow and transform the payments acceptance business by broadening the range of services offered, enhancing the experience for both existing and prospective clients. Leveraging extensive client relationships and deep experience of UK payments, we will create an environment of continuous innovation - activated by Brookfield's global private equity expertise in payments, technology, operational transformation and corporate carve-outs - to ensure the business is strategically positioned for long-term growth.

Barclays will invest approximately £400m in the new business, the majority of which will be incurred during the first three years. Performance-linked incentives will drive greater alignment between the partners, underpinning the long-term commitment to the transformation. Barclays and Brookfield will work to create a standalone entity over time, continuing to use the Barclaycard Payments (BPL) brand and acting as the sole payments acceptance services provider to Barclays' clients for a minimum of ten years.