Merchant Monitoring & Transaction Monitoring Lead

POSITION SUMMARY

The Merchant Monitoring & Transaction Monitoring Lead is a senior individual contributor and team lead role within the Risk Monitoring department of our acquiring bank. This position is responsible for overseeing the end-to-end lifecycle of merchant risk monitoring, spanning historical processing pattern analysis, chargeback and refund surveillance, AML compliance monitoring, fraud typology detection, and the ongoing management and optimization of our automated transaction monitoring system. The Lead will own the rule-setting strategy on our fraud monitoring platform and serve as the primary point of escalation for complex merchant risk cases.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES 

Merchant Risk Monitoring

• Lead comprehensive ongoing reviews of merchant processing behavior, including volume trends, transaction velocity, anomalies, and seasonal pattern deviations.
• Monitor chargeback ratios, dispute trends, and refund activity against card scheme thresholds (Visa, Mastercard) and internal risk appetite; escalate breaches promptly.
• Conduct deep-dive historical pattern analysis to identify deteriorating merchant profiles, sudden processing spikes, or business model shifts that indicate elevated risk.
• Identify and investigate bust-out fraud, patterns where merchants rapidly maximize processing volume before abandoning operations, leaving the bank exposed to outstanding chargebacks and liabilities.
• Detect and report on structuring, layering, and other AML red flags within merchant transaction data, ensuring compliance with applicable AML/CFT regulations and FATF guidelines.
• Monitor for additional risk typologies including credit-push fraud, card testing, triangulation fraud, money muling through merchant accounts, return fraud, and collusion between cardholders and merchants.
•  Assess exposure from high-risk merchant categories (MOTO, e-commerce, digital goods, gambling-adjacent, adult content) and apply enhanced monitoring protocols accordingly.
• Maintain accurate, audit-ready documentation of all monitoring activities, findings, escalations, and outcomes.

Transaction Monitoring — Rule Management & Optimization

• Own the configuration, deployment, and ongoing performance management of the bank's fraud transaction monitoring system (TMS).
• Design, implement, and tune rule sets within the TMS to detect fraud patterns including, but not limited to: velocity abuse, geographic anomalies, device fingerprint mismatches, card-not-present fraud, account takeover indicators, and high-risk merchant category abuse.
• Perform regular rule performance reviews, analyzing false positive rates, true positive rates, detection latency, and miss rates, and iterate rules to improve accuracy without degrading merchant experience.
• Maintain a rule change log with documented rationale, expected outcomes, and post-implementation results for audit and regulatory purposes.
• Develop new rules in response to emerging fraud typologies, scheme intelligence, industry threat alerts, and internal findings from investigations.
• Establish and maintain thresholds and escalation workflows within the TMS, including automated block, step-up review, and alert queues.
• Work with technology and vendor teams on TMS upgrades, model integrations (ML/AI scoring layers), and API-level rule enhancements.
• Produce regular reporting on transaction monitoring performance, rule effectiveness, fraud loss trends, and key risk indicators (KRIs) for senior management.

Team Leadership & Stakeholder Management

• Lead and mentor a team of merchant risk analysts, setting priorities, reviewing work output, and supporting professional development.
• Act as the primary escalation point for complex, high-value, or time-sensitive merchant monitoring cases.
• Partner with Compliance, Legal, AML/CFT Officers, and Internal Audit to ensure monitoring activities meet regulatory expectations and are audit-ready at all times.
• Represent the Risk Monitoring function in cross-functional projects including product launches, new market entries, and scheme compliance reviews.
• Provide subject matter expertise on merchant risk and transaction monitoring in senior risk committee meetings and regulatory examinations.

QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE

Required

• 5+ years of experience in payment risk, merchant acquiring risk, fraud operations, or a closely related field within a financial institution or payment processor.
• Demonstrated experience managing or configuring a transaction monitoring or fraud detection system (e.g., Featurespace, FICO Falcon, Feedzai, Actimize, or equivalent).
• Strong working knowledge of card scheme chargeback rules and thresholds (Visa VDMP/VFMP, Mastercard ECP).
• Solid understanding of AML/CFT typologies as they relate to merchant acquiring, including structuring, layering, and high-risk merchant categories.
• Experience with bust-out fraud, credit washing, and organized retail crime as they manifest in acquiring portfolios.
• Analytical proficiency, comfortable working with large datasets; SQL or equivalent query skills preferred.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to present risk findings clearly to senior stakeholders.

KEY COMPETENCIES

• Analytical thinking and pattern recognition across large, noisy datasets
• Sound judgment in escalation and risk-based decision making
• Rule logic design and iterative optimization mindset
• Collaboration and cross-functional influence
• Attention to detail and documentation discipline
• Resilience and effectiveness in a fast-paced, high-stakes environment