Risk Operations Manager - Merchant Risk

ALPHA LADDER AI PTE. LTD.; Singapore; On-site; SGD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

ALPHA LADDER AI PTE. LTD. is seeking a Risk Operations Manager - Merchant Risk in Singapore to strengthen the merchant risk framework across underwriting, monitoring and controls.

This hands-on role involves assessing merchant risk, setting risk thresholds and driving proactive remediation to protect the platform from fraudulent activity and regulatory exposure. You will collaborate with Risk, Compliance and Payments teams to establish scalable risk processes, dashboards and decisioning rules

Qualifications

• Experience in merchant risk and underwriting.
• Knowledge of AML/CFT and sanctions indicators.
• Experience with fraud monitoring and risk analytics.

Responsibilities

• Lead risk assessment and underwriting of new merchants across business models, industries, jurisdictions and payment products.
• Review merchant KYB/KYC information, corporate structures, beneficial ownership, business activities, website/app presence, transaction flows and source of funds where applicable.
• Monitor the merchant portfolio to identify changes in activity and emerging risk indicators.
• Develop and operate merchant-level risk controls, thresholds and alerts.
• Own day-to-day merchant risk investigations and ensure SLAs are met.
• Develop risk policies, procedures and automation for risk scoring and decisioning.
• Maintain merchant risk dashboards and periodic reporting.

Skills

Merchant Risk

Underwriting

Fraud Detection

Risk Management

KYC/KYB

Job description

As we continue to scale our payment and merchant ecosystem, we are looking for a Risk Operations Manager - Merchant Risk to strengthen our merchant risk management framework and ensure that merchants onboarded and transacting through our platforms remain within acceptable risk parameters. This is a hands-on role combining merchant underwriting, transaction risk management, fraud detection, portfolio monitoring and risk operations .

Key Responsibilities

1. Merchant Risk Assessment & Underwriting

   Lead risk assessment and underwriting of new merchants across different business models, industries, jurisdictions and payment products.

   Review merchant KYB/KYC information, corporate structures, beneficial ownership, business activities, website/app presence, transaction flows and source of funds where applicable.

   Assess merchant risk across factors including:

   • Business model and industry risk
   • Geographic and jurisdictional exposure
   • Transaction characteristics and expected volumes
   • Product/service risk
   • Fraud and chargeback exposure
   • Financial and operational risk
   • Regulatory and reputational risk
   • AML/CFT and sanctions-related risk indicators

   Establish appropriate merchant risk ratings, transaction limits, reserves, velocity controls and other risk mitigation measures.

   Escalate high-risk or unusual merchants to Risk/Compliance for enhanced due diligence or approval.

2. Ongoing Merchant Monitoring

   Monitor the merchant portfolio to identify changes in business activity, transaction patterns and emerging risk indicators.

   Conduct periodic and event-driven merchant reviews based on risk level and predefined triggers.

   Identify unusual changes in:

   • Transaction volume
   • Average transaction size
   • Refund rates
   • Chargeback rates
   • Geographic distribution
   • Payment methods
   • Customer behaviour
   • Product/service mix

   Investigate merchants whose actual transaction behaviour materially deviates from their approved business profile.

   Recommend appropriate actions including enhanced monitoring, transaction restrictions, temporary suspension or termination.

3. Fraud & Transaction Risk Management

   Develop and operate merchant-level transaction risk controls to detect potential fraud, abuse and suspicious activity.

   Work with Risk Product / Engineering teams to develop and optimise transaction monitoring rules, risk thresholds and automated alerts.

   Analyse transaction patterns and merchant behaviour to identify emerging fraud typologies.

   Investigate suspicious transaction activity and determine appropriate operational actions.

   Monitor fraud losses, chargebacks, refunds and other merchant-related risk metrics.

   Identify opportunities to improve detection accuracy while minimising false positives and unnecessary friction for legitimate merchants.

4. Chargeback & Payment Risk

   Monitor merchant chargeback, dispute, refund and fraud performance.

   Identify merchants with deteriorating payment performance and proactively implement remediation measures.

   Establish risk thresholds and escalation triggers for high-chargeback or high-refund merchants.

   Work with Payments Operations, Finance and Commercial teams on merchant remediation and loss recovery.

   Analyse root causes of payment disputes and recommend preventive measures.

5. Risk Operations & Case Management

   Own day-to-day merchant risk investigations and ensure cases are reviewed and resolved within defined SLAs.

   Establish clear investigation procedures, escalation matrices and decision-making frameworks.

   Maintain complete and auditable documentation of merchant risk decisions.

   Ensure consistent application of risk policies across merchant onboarding, monitoring and remediation.

   Conduct quality assurance reviews to identify gaps in risk decisions and operational processes.

   Support incident management and urgent merchant risk escalations.

6. Risk Policy, Controls & Process Improvement

   Develop and continuously improve merchant risk policies, procedures and operational playbooks.

   Define merchant risk segmentation and risk appetite criteria together with Risk and Compliance leadership.

   Review existing controls and identify opportunities for automation and process optimisation.

   Partner with Product, Engineering and Data teams to enhance merchant risk tooling and dashboards.

   Support the development of automated merchant risk scoring and decisioning frameworks.

   Conduct periodic reviews of risk rules to ensure they remain effective against evolving fraud and payment risk patterns.

7. Risk Analytics & Reporting

   Develop and maintain merchant risk dashboards and management reporting.

   Monitor key risk indicators including:

   • Merchant approval / rejection rates
   • High-risk merchant volumes
   • Fraud rates
   • Chargeback rates
   • Refund rates
   • Transaction decline rates
   • Risk alert volumes
   • Loss rates
   • Merchant concentration risk
   • Risk review turnaround time

   Provide regular portfolio risk reporting and insights to senio