About the Company
Our client is a Singapore-based financial technology company building regulated financial infrastructure and consumer-facing products across payments and digital financial services.
The company operates in a highly regulated environment and works closely with financial institutions, technology partners, and regulators to deliver secure, scalable, and compliant platforms. Its products sit at the intersection of payments, transactional platforms, and modern financial technology, supporting both enterprise and end-user use cases across the region.
The business is in a phase of measured growth, with a strong focus on product excellence, operational robustness, and sustainable scalability. Teams are lean, ownership-driven, and highly collaborative, offering individuals the opportunity to work on meaningful financial products with real-world impact.
Role Overview
The COO, Payments Operations will own the end-to-end payments and financial services operations across all markets, covering payment rails, e-wallets, settlement, reconciliation, compliance execution, and operational scalability. This role is responsible for driving operational excellence, cost efficiency, regulatory compliance, and sustainable growth across multi-country payment ecosystems.
The role partners closely with Product, Engineering, Compliance, Risk, Finance, and external financial institutions to ensure secure, scalable, and commercially optimised payment operations.
Key Responsibilities
Payments Operations & Execution
- Own end-to-end payment operations across cards, bank transfers, real-time payments, e-wallets, and alternative payment methods.
- Design, optimise, and continuously improve payment flows, settlement, reconciliation, dispute management, chargebacks, and refunds.
- Ensure high platform reliability, uptime, transaction success rates, and operational SLAs across all payment rails.
- Lead incident management, root-cause analysis, and remediation for payment failures and operational risks.
Multi-Market & Regulatory Operations
- Lead payments operations across multiple markets, tailoring execution to local regulations, schemes, and partner requirements while maintaining regional consistency.
- Partner with Compliance and Legal to operationalise regulatory requirements (e.g. e-money, AML/CFT, safeguarding, reporting, audits).
- Act as a key operations counterpart for regulators and auditors where required.
- Support licensing applications, renewals, and ongoing regulatory obligations from an operations perspective.
Commercial Optimisation & Cost Management
- Own payment cost structure and unit economics, including MDR, gateway fees, network fees, and bank charges.
- Negotiate and manage commercial terms with banks, payment networks, processors, and fintech partners.
- Drive continuous cost optimisation initiatives while maintaining service quality and compliance.
- Partner with Finance on settlement flows, cash management, and working capital optimisation.
Financial Services Operations
- Oversee operational execution for credit-based products, including customer onboarding, repayment flows, collections coordination, and operational risk controls.
- Partner with Risk and Data teams to ensure disciplined credit performance, fraud controls, and sustainable portfolio growth.
Product & Technology Collaboration
- Work closely with Product and Engineering to design scalable, API-driven, and automation-first payment operations.
- Translate operational and regulatory requirements into clear product and system specifications.
- Drive operational readiness for new product launches, market entries, and payment method rollouts.
Leadership & Team Building
- Build, lead, and scale high-performing payments operations teams across regions.
- Set clear KPIs covering transaction success rates, cost efficiency, compliance metrics, and customer experience.
- Foster a strong culture of ownership, execution excellence, and cross-functional collaboration.
Key Requirements:
- 10+ years of experience in payments, fintech, e-wallets, or financial services operations.
- Proven track record leading large-scale payment operations across multiple countries or regions.
- Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Business, or a related field.
- MBA or equivalent advanced degree is a strong advantage.
- Hands-on experience with payment rails, acquiring, issuing, real-time payments, and alternative payment methods.
- Strong exposure to regulatory frameworks for payments and e-money (e.g. MAS, BNM, or equivalent regulators).
- Demonstrated P&L ownership or strong commercial accountability within a payments or financial services business.
- Experience launching or scaling e-wallets, BNPL, or embedded finance products is highly preferred.
Skills & Capabilities
- Deep understanding of payment operations, settlement mechanics, and financial flows.
- Strong commercial acumen with experience negotiating complex partnerships with banks and payment networks.
- Data-driven operator with the ability to drive measurable improvements in cost, performance, and growth.
- Excellent stakeholder management across Product, Engineering, Compliance, Risk, and Finance.
- Proven leader with experience managing senior, cross-functional, and multicultural teams.
