Head of Merchant Acquiring Operations

Pine Labs; Metro Manila; On-site; PHP 1,800,000 - 2,200,000; Full time

Job summary

Pine Labs in Metro Manila, Philippines seeks a senior operations leader to drive merchant onboarding, risk controls, and end-to-end payment lifecycle optimization. You will own onboarding, KYC/AML checks, and ongoing monitoring while coordinating with Product and Tech to streamline routing across APIs and POS terminals.

The role emphasizes data-driven improvement, SLA adherence, and regional governance, with a focus on scaling merchant experiences and digital service models.

Qualifications

• 12+ years of core operations experience within the payments, merchant acquiring, fintech, or commercial credit card sectors.
• 3–5 years in a managerial or team lead capacity, preferably handling regional governance.
• Comprehensive knowledge of merchant onboarding, risk underwriting, settlements, chargebacks, and payment processing rails.
• Bachelor’s degree in business administration, Finance, Operations Management, or a related field.
• Deep understanding of the Philippines payment ecosystem.
• Familiarity with payment gateway architecture, settlement/reconciliation flows, and API-based integrations.
• Strong negotiation skills and the ability to translate complex technical/operational issues into business-friendly language.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the internal 'Voice of the Merchant,' gathering feedback to ensure touchpoints from technical setup to daily settlement are intuitive, while improving digital service models and dashboards.
• Identify bottlenecks across the merchant lifecycle to reduce turn-around-times and optimize the merchant experience.
• Own the merchant onboarding journey (KYC, AML checks, risk underwriting) and daily transaction monitoring, chargeback management, and dispute resolution.
• Oversee core operational and field deliverables—including settlement timelines, onboarding support, terminal deployment, cost management, and reporting, with adherence to SLAs.
• Monitor daily metrics, ticket backlogs, and aging queues; perform root-cause analysis to address recurring bottlenecks.
• Collaborate with Product and Tech to optimize payment routing and API integrations across systems.
• Champion AI-led transformations and change management for system migrations and platform upgrades.

Skills

Leadership

Onboarding

Risk management

KYC AML

Payment processing

APIs

Education

Bachelor’s degree

Tools

APIs

Job description

Pine Labs in Metro Manila, Philippines seeks a senior operations leader to drive merchant onboarding, risk controls, and end-to-end payment lifecycle optimization. You will own onboarding, KYC/AML checks, and ongoing monitoring while coordinating with Product and Tech to streamline routing across APIs and POS terminals.

The role emphasizes data-driven improvement, SLA adherence, and regional governance, with a focus on scaling merchant experiences and digital service models.