Payment Operations, Senior Specialist

Position Overview

The Payment Operations Senior Specialist will be a key driver of operational excellence at Forward, combining deep executional ownership with strategic process improvement. In this role, you will manage the day-to-day onboarding and operational queues while continuously looking for ways to improve the tools, workflows, and customer experience.

This is a hands-on, fast-paced role where you will balance tactical work (application review, fraud and transaction monitoring, and other escalations) with strategic initiatives (optimizing onboarding logic, documenting SOPs, and leading cross-functional projects). The right candidate is detail-obsessed, an analytical thinker, and able to zoom in on individual cases while also seeing the big picture trends.

Key Responsibilities

Own the Day-to-Day Merchant Lifecycle

• Manage the application queue, reviewing merchant onboarding submissions for accuracy, completeness, and risk indicators.
• Oversee bank account linking and verification, troubleshooting issues and monitoring for suspicious changes.
• Review transaction monitoring and fraud cases, escalating high-risk scenarios when needed.
• Handle bank returns, disputes, and escalations to ensure timely resolution and compliance with deadlines.

Identify and Act on Trends

• Monitor onboarding, risk, and other queues for emerging patterns or bottlenecks.
• Perform root cause analysis on recurring issues and propose data-driven solutions.
• Partner with product, engineering, and risk teams to refine onboarding logic and enhance fraud detection.

Lead Process & Tool Improvements

• Document, update, and maintain standard operating procedures (SOPs) to keep pace with process changes.
• Manage and deliver small-to-medium operational improvement projects, including testing new tooling and automation enhancements.
• Act as a subject matter expert (SME) for onboarding risk, training junior team members as needed.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Work closely with customer support, risk, and engineering to resolve escalated merchant issues quickly and effectively.
• Provide feedback on tool performance, recommend feature improvements, and help prioritize operational pain points.

Qualifications

• Experience: 3–5+ years in payment operations, merchant onboarding, risk management, or related financial operations roles.
• Technical & Analytical Skills: Familiarity with KYC/KYB, AML, fraud prevention techniques, and transaction monitoring best practices.
• Execution & Ownership: Proven ability to manage queues and deadlines while maintaining high accuracy and quality.
• Process Improvement: Experience documenting SOPs, leading operational initiatives, and implementing workflow or tool improvements.
• Communication: Excellent written and verbal skills; able to write clear documentation and present findings to cross-functional stakeholders.

Nice-to-Haves

• Proficiency with SQL or similar querying tools to analyze operational data, identify anomalies, and track trends.
• Solid knowledge of card payment processing, including authorizations, settlements, chargebacks, and dispute workflows.
• Strong understanding of ACH processing, including return codes, exceptions, and NACHA guidelines.

What Success Looks Like

• Merchant applications, bank accounts, and risk cases are processed with accuracy and speed.
• Operational issues are proactively spotted, escalated, and resolved before they become customer-impacting.
• Documentation is up-to-date and helps new hires ramp quickly.
• Meaningful process improvements are implemented that reduce manual work and improve efficiency.
• Cross-functional partners view you as a go-to expert for onboarding.