Head of Payments Operations & Integrations

Black Pen Recruitment; Cape Town; On-site; ZAR 900,000 - 1,400,000; Full time

Job summary

Black Pen Recruitment in Cape Town is seeking a Head of Operations to lead merchant onboarding, integration and customer support for a fintech payments platform. The role focuses on building strong teams, tightening operational controls and delivering reliable merchant service as the business scales.

Ideal candidates bring at least eight years in operations or related fields, hands-on leadership, and experience in payments or regulated environments.

Qualifications

• Candidates must hold a degree in business, operations management, information systems, finance, or a related field.
• At least 8 years' experience in operations, service delivery, or call centre environments.
• Experience in payments, banking, or another regulated environment is advantageous.
• Minimum 3 years’ experience managing team leaders or supervisors and a shift environment.
• Proven responsibility for service levels, onboarding or implementation, and budgets.
• Experience managing major incidents and after-hours support.
• Postgraduate qualification, ITIL or project management certification would be advantageous.

Responsibilities

• Lead Customer Support, Onboarding and Integrations with clear accountability.
• Manage merchant onboarding, system configuration and activation before go-live.
• Oversee plugin and API integrations and readiness for live payments.
• Manage service levels, escalations, and major incident communications.
• Collaborate with Product, Technology, Risk, Compliance, Finance and Commercial to address root causes.
• Maintain operational controls, procedures and business continuity plans.
• Use data to plan staffing, shift coverage and budgets, and drive automation.
• Recruit, coach and develop team leaders and specialists for growth and peak trading.

Skills

Operational leadership

Team management

Incident management

Onboarding

Payments domain knowledge

Process improvement

Education

Degree in business/operations/IS/finance

Tools

ITIL certification

PCI DSS knowledge

Job description

Black Pen Recruitment in Cape Town is seeking a Head of Operations to lead merchant onboarding, integration and customer support for a fintech payments platform. The role focuses on building strong teams, tightening operational controls and delivering reliable merchant service as the business scales.

Ideal candidates bring at least eight years in operations or related fields, hands-on leadership, and experience in payments or regulated environments.