Senior Manager, Credit Risk

Academic Key; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 110,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Airwallex is seeking a Senior Manager, Credit Risk based in London to lead the company’s global second-line oversight of credit, FX, and counterparty risk. You will define risk guardrails, govern exposures across merchant acquiring, settlement, and banking-partner activities, and challenge first-line decisions as a trusted advisor to senior leaders.

You will partner with Product, Engineering, and Finance to assess risk in new products and markets while maintaining risk appetite and governance

Qualifications

• Role requires analytical mindset and commercially minded risk leadership.
• Ability to define and implement second-line risk frameworks.
• Strong governance, policy development, and escalation experience.

Responsibilities

• Define, implement, and continuously enhance the global second-line credit risk framework, including policies, risk appetite thresholds, limits, escalation protocols, and governance standards.
• Oversee credit exposures across merchant acquiring, charge cards, FX pre-funding, treasury-related exposures, settlement flows, and other products.
• Review and challenge first-line underwriting strategies, customer and merchant risk policies, credit assessments, limit-setting methodologies, and exception processes.
• Establish and monitor FX risk guardrails for multi-currency activities; ensure exposures stay within tolerances.
• Set and oversee counterparty risk standards for banking partners, merchants, customers and other counterparties.
• Lead proactive monitoring of credit, FX, and counterparty portfolios; identify trends and escalate material issues.
• Review loss mitigation and remediation strategies; address deteriorating counterparties promptly.
• Collaborate with Product, Engineering, Commercial, Treasury, Finance, and Operations on risk design for new products and markets.
• Lead or support risk committee decisions, approvals, and remediation plans; ensure proper documentation.
• Represent Credit Risk during regulatory examinations and audits.

Job description

About Airwallex Airwallex is the AI-native financial operating system for a real-time, intelligent economy. More than 675,000 businesses, including McLaren Racing, Qantas, SHEIN, and TikTok, use us, directly or through our platform partners, to run their financial operations or build and monetize financial products of their own. We started in Melbourne in 2015 to build the infrastructure global commerce runs on. We're the regulated backbone behind global payments: not by accident, but by design. A decade plus, 85+ licenses, and a financial infrastructure spanning North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific. We're co-headquartered in San Francisco and Singapore, with more than 2,300 people across 27 offices. We hire builders with founder-level energy, people who move fast with good judgment, dig in with real curiosity, and make calls from first principles rather than waiting to be told what to do. Read our operating principles to see it in full. About the team The Credit Risk team is part of Airwallex’s Second Line of Defence and helps the company grow responsibly as a global financial platform. We work at the intersection of credit, FX, and counterparty risk, partnering closely with Product, Sales, Operations, Treasury, Finance, Engineering, Compliance, and Legal to enable commercial growth while protecting Airwallex from financial loss and excessive risk exposure. This is a team for analytical, commercially minded risk leaders who are energized by building scalable frameworks and practical controls across a fast-moving, multi-currency global network. What you'll do As a Senior Manager, Credit Risk, you will lead Airwallex's global second-line oversight of credit, FX, and counterparty risk. You will set the risk guardrails that allow the business to grow safely across merchant acquiring, charge cards, FX, treasury, settlement, and banking-partner activities. Reporting to the Senior Director, Financial Risk, you will own the global framework, risk appetite, limits, governance, and portfolio oversight for these risk areas. You will provide independent challenge to first-line decisions and act as a trusted advisor to senior leaders across the business. This role is based in London. Responsibilities Credit risk framework and risk appetite: Define, implement, and continuously enhance the global second-line credit risk framework, including policies, risk appetite thresholds, limits, escalation protocols, and governance standards across Airwallex’s products and legal entities. Credit portfolio oversight: Oversee credit exposures across merchant acquiring, charge cards, B2B and commercial activities, FX pre-funding, treasury-related exposures, settlement flows, and other relevant products. Underwriting and limit governance: Review and challenge first-line underwriting strategies, customer and merchant risk policies, credit assessments, limit-setting methodologies, and exception processes. Act as a senior escalation point for complex or high-value credit decisions. FX risk oversight: Establish and monitor appropriate second-line guardrails for FX exposures arising from pre-funding, settlement, customer activity, treasury flows, and other multi-currency activities. Challenge controls, limits, escalation triggers, and risk reporting to ensure exposures remain within approved tolerances. Counterparty risk management: Set and oversee counterparty risk standards for banking partners, payment partners, merchants, customers, and other material counterparties. Establish appropriate exposure limits, concentration thresholds, monitoring requirements, and escalation processes. Portfolio monitoring and early warning indicators: Lead proactive monitoring of credit, FX, and counterparty portfolios, including exposure, concentration, delinquency, default, chargeback, loss, settlement, liquidity-of-counterparty, and other relevant risk indicators. Identify emerging trends and escalate material issues before they become systemic. Loss mitigation and remediation: Review and challenge first-line monitoring, collections, collateral, prefunding, reserves, chargeback, and other mitigation strategies. Ensure deteriorating counterparties, customers, merchants, or exposures are identified and addressed promptly. New products and market expansion: Partner with Product, Engineering, Commercial, Treasury, Finance, and Operations to assess and challenge the risk design of new products, features, markets, currencies, and partner arrangements before launch. Risk approvals and governance: Lead or support risk committee decisions, material risk approvals, limit exceptions, breach assessments, and remediation plans. Ensure decisions are documented clearly and aligned with approved risk appetite. Regulatory and partner engagement: Represent Credit Risk during regulatory examinations, internal and external audits, and reviews with banking and strategic partners. Prepare clear, decision-useful materials for senior management, risk committe