About the Role:
We are looking for a Senior Manager, Risk Operations (Merchant Onboarding) to own regulatory, statutory, concurrent, internal, and external audits for merchant onboarding, while also governing onboarding SOPs, process adherence, and AML/EDD execution.
The role is primarily accountable for audit closure, root cause analysis, and CAPA — partnering with Operations, Product, Technology, Risk, Compliance, and Legal, ownership of SOP upkeep, process-adherence reporting, and AML/EDD oversight to keep onboarding audit-ready year-round. We're looking for someone from a fintech, payments, or bank onboarding/compliance background who is comfortable using AI and modern tech tools to solve problems, not just manage them manually.
Key Responsibilities:
1. Audit Observation Management & Timely Response
- Act as the single point of contact for all onboarding-related regulatory, statutory, concurrent, internal, and external audits.
- Conduct detailed research across internal systems, policies, operational records, and documentation to prepare accurate, timely, and evidence-backed responses to audit observations.
- Ensure every audit observation is responded to and closed within agreed regulatory and internal timelines.
- Maintain complete audit documentation, evidence repositories, and audit trails.
2. Root Cause Analysis, CAPA & Advisory
- Perform root cause analysis for every audit observation to identify underlying process, product, or system control gaps.
- Develop structured corrective and preventive action (CAPA) plans to eliminate recurrence of observations.
- Provide advisory to Operations, Product, and Technology teams on control gaps identified through audits, and partner with them to design sustainable, ideally automated, fixes.
- Use AI and automation tools to speed up evidence-gathering, observation analysis, and CAPA tracking wherever possible.
3. Compliance Coordination & Action Item Tracking
- Serve as the primary coordination point for all internal compliance items relating to onboarding, liaising with Compliance, Legal, Risk, and Operations.
- Own end-to-end governance of audit and compliance action items across multiple teams, all year round — tracking progress, resolving blockers, and driving accountability.
- Establish governance mechanisms — reviews, dashboards, escalation frameworks — and present progress, risks, and mitigation plans to senior leadership.
4. SOP, Process Adherence & AML/EDD Oversight
- Own onboarding SOPs and process documentation, keeping them current with every product, regulatory, or process change.
- Build and maintain reporting/dashboards to track process adherence and flag exceptions or control deviations.
- Maintain oversight of AML and EDD (Enhanced Due Diligence) execution quality for onboarding, coordinating with the teams running day-to-day AML/KYC checks.
- Recommend automation and AI-enabled opportunities to reduce manual effort across SOP tracking, reporting, and control monitoring.
Required Qualifications:
- 7-10 years of experience in Onboarding Operations, Audit Handling, or Risk Operations within Payments, Fintech, or Banking.
- Hands-on comfort with AI and modern tech tools (e.g., LLM-based assistants, automation platforms, SQL/BI tools) to solve operational and compliance problems, not just track them.
Preferred Experience:
The ideal candidate should possess a strong understanding of:
- Merchant/customer onboarding and lifecycle management in a bank, fintech, PA/PG, or acquiring context.
- AML, KYC, and enhanced due diligence (EDD) processes.
- RBI regulations applicable to Payment Aggregators and Payment Gateways, and/or banking compliance norms.
- Card scheme and network compliance requirements (Visa, Mastercard, RuPay, American Express, etc.).
- Using AI/automation tools to build reporting, streamline audit evidence collection, or flag exceptions at scale.
Skills & Competencies:
- Strong program management skills with the ability to drive complex cross-functional audit and compliance initiatives.
- Excellent stakeholder management across Operations, Product, Technology, Risk, Compliance, and Legal.
- Exceptional written communication and documentation skills for audit responses and SOPs.
- Strong analytical and root cause analysis capabilities.
- Genuine curiosity and fluency with AI tools and automation — able to identify where they can replace manual audit/compliance work and implement them practically.
- High attention to detail with a structured, process-oriented mindset, and comfort managing multiple audits against regulatory timelines.
Success Metrics:
- Timely closure of audit observations within agreed timelines, and reduction in repeat findings.
- Timely completion of CAPA plans, validated for effectiveness.
- Quality and completeness of audit documentation and evidence trails.
- Adherence to SOPs across onboarding, and currency of SOP documentation.
- Quality of AML/EDD execution
- Demonstrated use of AI/automation to improve audit and compliance turnaround.
