Risk Operations Analyst

Ryft; Manchester; On-site; GBP 45,000 - 65,000; Full time

Job summary

Ryft is seeking a Risk Operations Analyst to join its first line fraud and risk function based in Manchester. The role supports relationships with acquiring and banking partners, handling queries to resolution and monitoring merchant risk.

The successful candidate will trace transactions end-to-end, tailor responses to partner expectations, and escalate when necessary. You’ll collaborate with the Fraud & Risk Manager to improve monitoring and response processes.

Qualifications

• Experience in a payments operations, risk operations, or financial crime role within a PSP, acquirer, payment facilitator, or bank with direct exposure to acquirer or banking partner queries.
• Demonstrable ability to trace transactions through payment systems you understand how a payment moves, where it can go wrong, and how to reconstruct what happened from system data.
• Strong written communication skills, with experience producing clear, structured responses to banking or regulatory counterparties who expect precision.
• An investigative mindset you ask the next question, not just the obvious one. You’re not satisfied with a plausible explanation if the evidence doesn’t fully support it.
• Organised and reliable under query volume able to manage multiple open cases simultaneously without losing track of timelines or detail.
• Comfortable operating within a first line risk function with real accountability for the quality and timeliness of outputs.

Responsibilities

• Act as the primary point of contact for inbound risk and compliance queries from Ryft’s acquiring and banking partners managing each query through to full resolution.
• Trace transactions end-to-end through Ryft’s systems in response to partner queries reconstructing the payment journey, identifying where issues occurred, and producing clear, accurate responses that meet the bank’s expectations.
• Understand what each banking partner needs to see in a response and tailor your output accordingly whether that’s a transaction trail, a merchant explanation, supporting documentation, or a combination.
• Question what you find don’t close a query at the first plausible answer. If something looks unusual or doesn’t add up, dig further and elevate to the Fraud & Risk Manager where needed.
• Maintain a clear log of all partner queries, response timelines, and outcomes, ensuring nothing falls through the cracks and that patterns across queries are surfaced proactively.
• Carry out day-to-day merchant risk monitoring across the Ryft portfolio reviewing transaction activity, volumes, and behavioural patterns to identify anomalies that may indicate fraud, policy breach, or elevated risk.
• Feed merchant risk intelligence into the fraud detection and response process, working closely with the Fraud & Risk Manager to ensure monitoring activity informs rule tuning and threshold decisions.

Skills

Payments operations

Investigation mindset

Written communication

Organised and reliable

Tools

SQL

Job description

Ryft is an FCA-licensed payment platform on a mission to make payments a source of growth for marketplaces and digital platforms. Built specifically for UK and European businesses, we handle everything from automated split payments and seller onboarding to compliance so our clients can focus on scaling.

About the Role

We’re hiring a Risk Operations Analyst to sit within our first line fraud and risk function, reporting to the Fraud & Risk Manager. This role is the operational backbone of how Ryft manages its relationships with acquiring and banking partners taking inbound queries from our acquires and bank partners, and owning them through to resolution.

The core of this role is investigative. When a query comes in from a banking partner, we need someone who can trace a transaction end-to-end through our systems, understand what the bank is actually asking, produce a response that meets their expectations and, critically, question what they find along the way rather than closing the thread at the first plausible answer.

Alongside partner queries, you’ll carry out merchant risk monitoring as part of the broader fraud and risk operation reviewing merchant behaviour, flagging anomalies, and feeding intelligence into the fraud detection and response process led by the Fraud & Risk Manager. If you’re someone who digs until they have the full picture, is comfortable navigating between internal systems and external expectations, and takes pride in the quality of what they send to a bank, this role is for you.

What You’ll Do

Acquirer & Banking Partner Query Management

• Act as the primary point of contact for inbound risk and compliance queries from Ryft’s acquiring and banking partners managing each query through to full resolution.
• Trace transactions end-to-end through Ryft’s systems in response to partner queries reconstructing the payment journey, identifying where issues occurred, and producing clear, accurate responses that meet the bank’s expectations.
• Understand what each banking partner needs to see in a response and tailor your output accordingly whether that’s a transaction trail, a merchant explanation, supporting documentation, or a combination.
• Question what you find don’t close a query at the first plausible answer. If something looks unusual or doesn’t add up, dig further and elevate to the Fraud & Risk Manager where needed.
• Maintain a clear log of all partner queries, response timelines, and outcomes, ensuring nothing falls through the cracks and that patterns across queries are surfaced proactively.
• Build a working knowledge of each partner’s reporting expectations, query formats, and escalation preferences, reducing friction in ongoing communications.
• Carry out day-to-day merchant risk monitoring across the Ryft portfolio reviewing transaction activity, volumes, and behavioural patterns to identify anomalies that may indicate fraud, policy breach, or elevated risk.
• Feed merchant risk intelligence into the fraud detection and response process, working closely with the Fraud & Risk Manager to ensure monitoring activity informs rule tuning and threshold decisions.
• Flag merchants or sub-merchants exhibiting patterns of concern, documenting your findings clearly and escalating where a risk response is required.
• Support chargeback and dispute monitoring at the merchant level, identifying accounts with elevated dispute rates and feeding that data into the wider fraud analysis process.
• Maintain accurate, audit-ready records of monitoring activity and risk decisions in line with FCA expectations and internal policy.

Cross-functional Collaboration

• Work closely with the Fraud & Risk Manager to ensure partner query intelligence and merchant monitoring findings are connected a query from an acquirer about a specific merchant should inform, and be informed by, what you’re seeing in monitoring.
• Liaise with the underwriting team where partner queries or merchant monitoring activity raises questions about how a merchant was onboarded or what their risk profile should be.
• Support the engineering and product teams with information requests related to transaction tracing, where system-level investigation requires cross-functional input.
• Contribute to the continuous improvement of response templates, internal runbooks, and query management procedures.

What We’re Looking For

• Experience in a payments operations, risk operations, or financial crime role within a PSP, acquirer, payment facilitator, or bank with direct exposure to acquirer or banking partner queries.
• Demonstrable ability to trace transactions through payment systems you understand how a payment moves, where it can go wrong, and how to reconstruct what happened from system data.
• Strong written communication skills, with experience producing clear, structured responses to banking or regulatory counterparties who expect precision.
• An investigative mindset you ask the next question, not just the obvious one. You’re not satisfied with a plausible explanation if the evidence doesn’t fully support it.
• Organised and reliable under query volume able to manage multiple open cases simultaneously without losing track of timelines or detail.
• Comfortable operating within a first line risk function with real accountability for the quality and timeliness of outputs.

Nice to Have

• Familiarity with merchant risk monitoring in a PayFac or marketplace payments model.
• Experience with chargeback and dispute management, including TC40/SAFE data or scheme fraud reporting.
• Exposure to fraud tooling such as Fraud.net, Sift, SEON or equivalent platforms.
• SQL or data querying skills for self-serve transaction investigation.

Ryft is an equal opportunities employer. We welcome applications from all backgrounds and are committed to building a diverse and inclusive team.