Senior Card Payments Specialist

Starling Bank; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

33 days holiday (incl. public holidays

Birthday leave

Enhanced pension

Life insurance

Private Medical Insurance

Perkbox membership

Volunteer days

Cycle to Work

EV leasing

Job summary

Starling Bank in London is seeking a highly experienced Senior Card Payments Specialist to join our Payments Scheme team. You will own SME responsibilities for card payments, working with engineering and business teams to design, build, and operate our banking payments environment.

The role requires deep knowledge of card schemes (Visa, Mastercard) and end-to-end lifecycle including authorisation, clearing and settlement.

Qualifications

• Approximately 15 years experience in banking and financial services.
• Significant hands-on experience in card payments and card schemes.
• Deep knowledge of the end-to-end card payments lifecycle.
• Strong working knowledge of Visa and Mastercard rules and compliance.
• Experience collaborating with engineering, technology and architecture teams.
• Ability to translate card scheme requirements into actionable technical specs.
• Experience acting as a payments SME during incidents and complex issues.
• Understanding of payments risk, governance, controls and compliance.
• Excellent analytical, problem solving, communication and stakeholder management.
• Experience with issuing, acquiring, processing disputes, chargebacks and fraud

Responsibilities

• Act as a senior SME for card payments across the organisation.
• Provide specialist payments expertise during incidents and outages to assist investigation and resolution.
• Work closely with engineering and technology teams to design and implement card payment capabilities per scheme rules.
• Review solutions for potential operational, scheme or compliance issues.
• Ensure card payment capabilities comply with card scheme rules and standards.
• Maintain knowledge of Visa and Mastercard scheme requirements and updates.
• Provide end-to-end card payment lifecycle expertise (authorisation, clearing, settlement).
• Contribute specialist knowledge on issuing, acquiring, processing disputes, chargebacks and fraud.
• Collaborate with banks, processors, payment service providers, card schemes and third parties.
• Support governance, risk management and regulatory compliance for payments.
• Identify and resolve complex card payment issues.
• Provide input into payment projects and new banking capabilities.
• Advise colleagues and senior stakeholders on payment risks and requirements.

Job description

Starling is the UK's first and leading digital bank on a mission to fix banking! We built a new kind of bank because we knew technology had the power to help people save, spend and manage their money in a new and transformative way.

We're a fully licensed UK bank with the culture and spirit of a fast-moving, disruptive tech company. We're a bank, but better: fairer, easier to use and designed to demystify money for everyone. We employ more than 3,000 people across our London, Southampton, Cardiff and Manchester offices.

Our technologists are at the very heart of Starling and enjoy working in a fast-paced environment that is all about building things, creating new stuff, and disruptive technology that keeps us on the cutting edge of fintech. We operate a flat structure to empower you to make decisions regardless of what your primary responsibilities may be, innovation and collaboration will be at the core of everything you do. Help is never far away in our open culture, you will find support in your team and from across the business, we are in this together!

The way to thrive and shine within Starling is to be a self-driven individual and be able to take full ownership of everything around you: From building things, designing, discovering, to sharing knowledge with your colleagues and making sure all processes are efficient and productive to deliver the best possible results for our customers. Our purpose is underpinned by five Starling values: Listen, Keep It Simple, Do The Right Thing, Own It, and Aim For Greatness.

Hybrid Working

We have a Hybrid approach to working here at Starling - our preference is that you're located within a commutable distance of one of our offices so that we're able to interact and collaborate in person. In Technology, we're asking that you attend the office a minimum of 1 day per week.

About the Role

We are looking for a highly skilled Senior Card Payments Specialist to join our Payments Scheme team.

This is a senior, hands‑on position for someone with approximately 15 years experience within banking and financial services, with deep specialist knowledge of card payments and card scheme requirements

This is not a team leadership or people management role. We are looking for an experienced individual who can operate at a senior level, provide trusted subject matter expertise and work closely with both technical and business teams as we continue to build and operate our banking and payments environment.

What you'll get to do

As a Senior Card Payments Specialist, you will act as a key subject matter expert (SME) for card payments, providing practical expertise across the design, build and on‑going operation of our banking environment.

A key part of the role will be working closely with the engineering and technology teams to ensure card payment capabilities are designed and implemented correctly, with appropriate consideration given to card scheme rules, operational requirements, controls and compliance.

You will also provide senior subject matter expertise during incidents and operational issues, helping engineering and operational teams understand the payments impact, diagnose problems and determine the appropriate course of action.

• Acting as a senior subject matter expert for card payments across the organisation
• Providing specialist payments expertise during incidents service disruptions and other operational issues, supporting investigation, diagnosis and resolution
• Working closely with engineers and technical teams building the banking and payment environment, translating card payment and scheme requirements into practical technical and operational requirements
• Reviewing proposed solutions and implementations from a card payments perspective and identifying potential operationals, scheme or compliance issues
• Ensuring card payment capabilities are designed and operated in accordance with applicable card scheme rules, standards and requirements.
• Maintaining strong knowledge of relevant requirements from schemes success as Visa and Mastercard, including changes to scheme rules and standards
• Providing expertise across the end to end card payment lifecycle, including authorisation, clearing and settlement
• Providing specialist knowledge across issuing, acquiring, processing disputes, chargebacks and fraud
• Working with banks, processors, payment service providers, card schemes and other third parties
• Supporting appropriate operational controls, governance, risk management and regulatory compliance
• Identifying and resolving complex card payment issues
• Providing specialist input into payment projects, technical change and new banking products and capabilities
• Advising colleagues and senior stakeholders on card payment matters, risks and requirements

We are looking for someone who can demonstrate:

• Approximately 15 years experience within banking and or financial services
• Significant hands on experience specifically within card payments
• Deep knowledge of the end to end card payments lifecycle
• Strong working knowledge of major card schemes, particularly Visa and Mastercard, and their associated rules and compliance requirements
• Experience working alongside engineering, technology and architecture teams within banking payments environments
• The ability to translate complex card scheme and payment requirements into language and requirements that technical teams can implement
• Experience acting as a payments SME during incidents and complex operational issues
• Strong understanding of issue, acquiring, processing, authorisation, clearing, settlement, disputes, chargebacks and fraud
• Experience with EMV configurations, in-life testing, card stock and print management
• Experience operating within regulated financial services environments
• Strong understanding of payments risk, governance, controls and compliance
• The confident to challenge proposed technical solutions where they may create payment, operational or scheme compliance risks
• Excellent analytical, problem solving, communication and stakeholder management skills

The Person we are looking for:

• You will be an experienced banking and card payments professional who has developed deep, practical expertise over a substantial career.
• The role is also suited to someone who wants to remain a senior individual contributor and subject matter expert, rather than move into people management.
• You will be equally comfortable discussing a complex card payment incident, interpreting scheme requirements, working through problems with engineers, or advising senior stakeholders on the implications of a particular approach.
• Most importantly, you will bring the depth of experience required to help ensure that our banking and card payments environment remains technically sound, operationally resilient and compliance with applicable card s heme requirements

Interview Process

Interviewing is a two way process and we want you to have the time and opportunity to get to know us, as much as we are getting to know you! Our interviews are conversational and we want to get the best from you, so come with questions and be curious. In general you can expect the below, following a chat with one of our Talent Team:

1. First stage with the two members of the Payments/Cards team ~ 45 minutes
2. Second stage with additional members of the Payments/Cards team, including a Director ~ 1 hour
3. Final stage, including meeting Head of IT Risk & Controls ~ 45 minutes

• 33 days holiday (including public holidays, which you can take when it 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

About us

You may be put off applying for a role because you don't tick every box. Forget that! So, if you're excited about working with us, but aren't sure if you're 100% there yet, get in touch anyway. We're on a mission to radically reshape banking - and that starts with our brilliant team. Whatever came before, we're proud to bring together people of all backgrounds and experiences who love working together to solve problems.

Starling is an equal opportunity employer, and we're proud of our ongoing efforts to foster diversity & inclusion in the workplace. Individuals seeking employment at Starling are considered without regard to race, religion, national origin, age, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, medical condition, ancestry, physical or mental disability, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

When you provide us with this information, you are doing so at your own consent, with full knowledge that we will process this personal data in accordance with our Privacy Notice. By submitting your application, you agree that Starling will collect your personal data for recruiting and related purposes. Our Privacy Notice explains what personal information we will process, where we will process your personal information, its purposes for processing your personal information, and the rights you can exercise over our use of your personal data.