Business Development Manager

Stealth Startup; Hong Kong; On-site; HKD 900,000 - 1,500,000; Full time

Job summary

Stealth Startup is seeking an experienced Business Development Manager to drive direct merchant acquisition and revenue growth across EEA, LATAM, Africa, or APAC. The role focuses on identifying, pitching, and closing merchants with cross-border payment needs, especially in ecommerce, digital services, gaming, fintech, and related online businesses.

You will own the full sales cycle from outreach and solution pitching to onboarding and go-live, building a qualified pipeline and expanding wallet

Qualifications

• 3–5 years of experience in business development or merchant sales within payments or fintech.
• Proven track record of direct merchant acquisition and revenue growth.
• Strong network among online merchants and cross-border digital verticals.
• Solid understanding of merchant acquiring, cross-border payments, and settlement flows.
• Experience selling payment solutions including cards, local methods, and stablecoin/fiat-crypto flows.
• Excellent negotiation skills across multi-stakeholder environments.

Responsibilities

• Identify, prospect, and acquire direct merchants requiring payment acceptance and cross-border solutions.
• Build a robust pipeline across priority regions: EU, LATAM, Africa, APAC.
• Manage full sales cycle from outreach to onboarding and go-live.
• Develop tailored payment propositions based on merchant needs.
• Drive merchant signings, transaction growth, and revenue across regions.
• Collaborate with product, compliance, risk, and operations to onboard merchants.

Skills

Merchant sales

Direct merchant acquisition

Cross-border payments

Negotiation

Regional knowledge

Industry networks

Onboarding & risk awareness

Job description

We are seeking an experienced Business Development Manager to drive direct merchant acquisition and revenue growth across EEA, LATAM, Africa, or APAC. This role is focused on identifying, pitching, and closing merchants with cross-border payment needs, particularly in sectors such as e-commerce, digital services, gaming, FX/OTC, fintech, and other high-growth online businesses.

The ideal candidate has strong experience in merchant acquiring, payments, fintech, or crypto payments, and a proven ability to build a qualified pipeline, win new merchants, and grow payment volume. This is a hunter role with a strong focus on direct sales, merchant expansion, and commercial execution, rather than partnership-led business development.

Key Responsibilities

• Identify, prospect, and acquire direct merchants requiring payment acceptance, stablecoin settlement, or hybrid fiat-crypto payment solutions.
• Build and manage a strong pipeline of target merchants across priority verticals, including ecommerce, OTA, gaming, digital platforms, FX/OTC brokers, and fintech businesses.
• Manage the full sales cycle from outreach and solution pitching to commercial negotiation, onboarding, and go-live.
• Develop tailored payment propositions based on merchant needs, including acceptance methods, settlement options, processing flows, and cross-border coverage.
• Drive new merchant signings, transaction volume growth, and revenue generation across assigned regions.
• Expand wallet share within acquired merchants by increasing payment method adoption, geographic coverage, and transaction use cases.
• Work closely with internal teams to improve merchant conversion, onboarding efficiency, and ongoing account performance.
• Maintain a strong understanding of merchant unit economics, payment conversion, approval rates, chargeback risks, and settlement structures.

Commercial Execution & Market Development

• Identify and pursue high-potential merchant segments and regional corridors across EU, LATAM, Africa, and APAC in line with the company's go-to-market plans.
• Gather market intelligence on merchant needs, competitor offerings, pricing, and local payment trends to sharpen sales conversations and deal positioning.
• Prepare commercial proposals, pricing structures, and business cases to support deal closure and long-term merchant value.
• Attend merchant-facing meetings, industry events, and sales discussions to generate leads and build relationships.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Work with product, compliance, risk, and operations teams to ensure merchant onboarding, KYC/KYB, settlement setup, and payment flows are aligned with client requirements and internal controls.
• Support merchants during integration and implementation, working with internal technical teams to ensure a smooth onboarding and launch process.
• Share merchant feedback to help refine product features, onboarding flows, settlement options, and risk controls.

Qualifications

• 3–5 years of experience in business development, merchant sales, or commercial roles within payments, merchant acquiring, fintech, or crypto payments.
• Proven track record of direct merchant acquisition, pipeline development, and closing revenue generating deals.
• Strong network among online merchants, cross-border businesses, payment users, or high-growth digital verticals such as e-commerce, gaming, digital services, fintech, or broker platforms.
• Solid understanding of merchant acquiring, payment acceptance, cross-border payments, settlement flows, merchant onboarding, and payment risk management.
• Experience selling payment solutions involving cards, local payment methods, wallet funding, stablecoin settlement, or fiat-crypto payment flows is highly preferred.
• Strong commercial negotiation skills and the ability to manage complex sales processes across multiple stakeholders.
• Ability to work effectively with product, compliance, AML/KYC, risk, and operations teams to onboard and launch merchants successfully.