Account Manager - Merchant Success (SME)

DIRECT LENDING SDN. BHD.; Kuala Lumpur; On-site; MYR 67,000 - 134,000; Full time

Job summary

Direct Lending is a fast-growing fintech enabling merchants with needs-based BNPL financing. You will own a portfolio of 200+ merchants, driving activation and ongoing engagement across auto workshops, takaful agencies, and medical providers.

You will engage in merchant visits, calls, and trainings to promote financing, identify barriers to activation, and grow transaction volume. Fluency in Bahasa Malaysia and English is preferred.

Qualifications

• 2–4 years of experience in account management ( >200 accounts ), merchant relations, or B2B relationship management.

Responsibilities

• Re-engage dormant merchants and convert them into active transacting partners.
• Conduct merchant visits, calls, and training sessions to promote financing to customers.
• Identify and remove activation barriers—operational, knowledge-based, or motivational.
• Manage a portfolio of more than 200 active merchant accounts and maintain strong relationships.
• Monitor merchant performance, address drops, and intervene to prevent dormancy.
• Grow merchant financing adoption by helping merchants see BNPL as a growth tool.
• Be the voice of the merchant internally; surface feedback to product and business teams.
• Conduct regular check-ins and business reviews with key merchants to maintain engagement and trust.
• Support merchants with onboarding and operational issues, coordinating internally to resolve quickly.
• Maintain records of interactions and performance in the CRM; report portfolio health and activation metrics.

Skills

Account management

Merchant relations

B2B relationships

Job description

Account Manager - Merchant Success (SME)

Direct Lending is a fast-growing, award-winning lending fintech on a mission to empower people's lives with simple and responsible financing. Having built a sustainable, profitable foundation, we are now entering a scaling-up phase. Our roadmap is clear: scale our needs-based financing, grow our revenue 5X and become IPO-ready by 2030.

We are looking for a Account Manager - Merchant Success (SME) to be the driving force behind our merchant engagement. With close to 3,000 onboarded merchants across auto workshops, takaful agencies, and medical providers, your mission is clear — turn onboarded merchants into active, high-performing partners. You will own a portfolio of more than 200+ merchants, understand their business, and ensure our needs-based BNPL financing becomes an integral part of how they serve their customers.

At Direct Lending, success isn't measured by how many merchants you manage, but by how many are actively growing with us.

Why Join Direct Lending?

Ownership of Real Outcomes: You will own a merchant portfolio with a clear KPI — transaction volume. Your work directly impacts the company's loan book and growth story.

Variety and Growth: You will rotate through merchant activation and retention functions over a period of time, building a comprehensive skill set and seeing the full merchant lifecycle.

Mission-Driven Work: You will be working with workshops, medical providers, and takaful agencies — businesses that serve everyday Malaysians. Your work helps real people access financing when they need it most.

Speed as a Competitive Advantage: We are a lean, profitable fintech where decisions are made in hours, not months. You will have the support and autonomy to get things done.

Your Core Responsibilities

Re-engage dormant merchants and convert them into active transacting partners.

Conduct merchant visits, calls, and training sessions to ensure they understand and confidently promote our needs-based financing to their customers.

Identify and remove barriers to activation — whether operational, knowledge-based, or motivational.

Manage a portfolio of more than 200+ active merchant accounts, building strong relationships and ensuring consistent transaction volume.

Monitor merchant performance regularly, identify drop-off early, and intervene proactively before merchants go dormant.

Work with merchants to grow their financing adoption — helping them see BNPL as a tool to grow their own sales and customer base.

3. Merchant Engagement & Feedback

Be the voice of the merchant internally — surface feedback, pain points, and opportunities to the product and business teams.

Conduct regular check-ins and business reviews with key merchants to maintain engagement and trust.

Support merchants with any operational or onboarding issues, coordinating internally to resolve quickly.

Maintain accurate and up-to-date records of merchant interactions, status, and performance in the CRM.

Report on portfolio health, activation rates, and transaction volumes to the team lead regularly.

Flag at-risk merchants early and propose action plans to address them.

Who You Are

2–4 years of experience in account management (>200 accounts), merchant relations, or B2B relationship management, ideally in fintech, BNPL, insurance, or financial services. The role is not suitable for key account management.

Experience managing high volume of SME or merchant portfolios is a strong advantage.

Commercially minded — you understand that relationships are the means, but transaction volume is the outcome.

A natural communicator who can build trust quickly with small business owners across different industries and backgrounds.

Proactive and self-driven — you manage your own portfolio and don't wait to be told which merchant needs attention.

Comfortable with data — you use performance numbers to prioritise your time and identify where to focus.

Fluent in Bahasa Malaysia and English; ability to communicate in Mandarin is an advantage given our merchant base.

Willing to travel for merchant visits as required.

Working at Direct Lending

We value direct communication, evidence-based decision-making, and people who take ownership without being told. Our values are:

Right thing, always — act with integrity

Ownership — own outcomes, not tasks

One team — collaborate, never silo

Today's best is tomorrow's benchmark — improve continuously

Serve customers first — every decision starts with the customer

Direct Lending is an award-winning digital lending platform with 10,000 5-star reviews on Google. Our mission is to foster financial inclusion by enabling every hardworking adult to have access to affordable financing, enabling them to have a better quality of life.

We started as a loan marketplace, connecting borrowers with over 30 lenders, with over 300,000 loan eligibility processed.

With the vision to provide a seamless financing experience, we launched a Syariah-compliant auto service financing in 2022 which enables car owners to pay for car repairs instantly & affordably. We now expand into SME financing and motor takaful financing, collaborating with over 3,000 merchants across Malaysia

Direct Lending is an award-winning digital lending platform with 10,000 5-star reviews on Google. Our mission is to foster financial inclusion by enabling every hardworking adult to have access to affordable financing, enabling them to have a better quality of life.

We started as a loan marketplace, connecting borrowers with over 30 lenders, with over 300,000 loan eligibility processed.

With the vision to provide a seamless financing experience, we launched a Syariah-compliant auto service financing in 2022 which enables car owners to pay for car repairs instantly & affordably. We now expand into SME financing and motor takaful financing, collaborating with over 3,000 merchants across Malaysia