Card Schemes & Acquiring Partnerships Manager

About the Job: Our growing regional payments company is looking for an experienced payments professional to help establish its merchant-acquiring and payment-gateway capabilities.This is a full-time position based in Singapore, reporting to a senior legal and compliance leader.The person will build the required banking and payment-partner ecosystem and coordinate the business from initial setup through to launch and ongoing operations.ResponsibilitiesBuild relationships with card schemes, acquiring banks, settlement banks, payment processors, gateways and other payment providers.Assess different merchant-acquiring models and recommend the most suitable approach for the business.Evaluate potential partners based on their capabilities, commercial terms and implementation requirements.Negotiate processing fees, settlement timelines, reserves, service levels and other commercial arrangements.Coordinate partner applications, due diligence, registrations, approvals and renewals.Manage technical integration, testing and certification activities with product and engineering teams.Translate partner requirements into clear business, operational and technical actions.Build operating processes covering merchant onboarding, settlement, reconciliation, refunds, chargebacks and fraud.Track partner obligations, certifications, service performance, incidents and outstanding dependencies.Coordinate launch-readiness reviews across product, engineering, finance, treasury, risk, compliance, information security and operations.Monitor payment performance and resolve settlement failures, service issues or partner breaches.Support the transition from implementation into stable day-to-day payment operations.RequirementsBachelor’s degree in Business, Finance, Economics, Technology, Law or a related discipline.Around 7+ years of relevant payments experience.Practical experience working with a card scheme, acquiring bank, payment facilitator, merchant acquirer, gateway or payment processor.Direct involvement in building or launching a new payments, acquiring or card-processing capability.Good understanding of card authorization, clearing, settlement, processing fees, refunds, chargebacks and fraud.Experience coordinating commercial, technical, operational and legal workstreams.Working knowledge of payment-security standards and partner due-diligence requirements.Strong project-management, negotiation, analytical and stakeholder-management skills.Ability to turn complex partner requirements into clear actions for internal teams.Comfortable building new processes in an environment where requirements are still developing.