At American Express, our culture is built on a 175-year history of innovation, shared values and Leadership Behaviors, and an unwavering commitment to back our customers, communities, and colleagues. As part of Team Amex, you'll experience this powerful backing with comprehensive support for your holistic well-being and many opportunities to learn new skills, develop as a leader, and grow your career.
Here, your voice and ideas matter, your work makes an impact, and together, you will help us define the future of American Express.
How will you make an impact in this role?
The Global Merchant Payments and Disputes team within GMNS Global Strategy Operations & Performance, ensures a reliable and seamless merchant experience for payments and disputes.
The key focus and priorities areas for this team are:
Merchant payments and resiliency – ensuring processes and systems support merchant payments resiliency. This includes supporting payment system uplifts.
Bank relationship management – managing bank partners that provide a service to make merchant payments and collections
Oversight and control – ensuring robust process documentation is in place to support processes, identifying and mitigating any process vulnerabilities
Disputes management – ensuring a compliant and reliable merchant disputes experience
The role of Senior Manager, Bank Relationships, Merchant Payments & Disputes is an exciting opportunity to lead and oversee the strategic management and optimization of our transactional banking partners spanning the EMEA and Multi-Currency (MCCY) markets covering Merchant payments and collections.
Specific responsibilities will include:
Manage the end-to-end process for bank partner relationship for EMEA and Multi-Currency (MCCY) payments and collections: find the right potential partners, negotiate the commercial agreements, complete account opening forms, explain our compliance processes, pass due diligence, and do anything else needed to be ready for developmen
Establish and maintain formal contractual arrangements, SLA’s and other performance
Own and manage the day to day relationship with partner banks
Monitor daily, monthly, cumulative statistics for activities with partner banks, based on standard Metrics including: on time and delayed file exchanges; payment volumes and value; achievement of agreed SLA’s
Arrange and facilitate periodic service level review meetings with partner banks and internal business and technology groups.
Support problem resolution, by providing leadership and interaction with partner banks and internal teams
Lead commercial and relationship discussions with partners and monitor economics on global routes to ensure we offer the most sustainable and competitive service in the market
Oversee external bank partner projects end-to-end, working cross functionally to define resources, dependencies, and timelines and ensure seamless delivery. Partner teams could include servicing, technology partners, sales and client management and treasury teams
Support Payments and Pricing Modernization Enterprise projects by owning some workstreams, supporting partner teams on data clean up and managing the merchant experience through the change
Interface with technology and product teams to define and communicate business requirements, triage system outages, support testing efforts, make decisions on trade-offs, and remove delivery roadblocks
Partner effectively across business groups to influence partners to drive change, gain technology prioritization and stakeholder buy-in
Minimum Qualifications
Strong knowledge of the merchant business, related operational processes, and supporting technology infrastructure
Network management experience, including partner management framework, assessment and optimization of third-party partners, third-party risk management, SLA management, and fees optimization
Payment scheme expertise: Proven experience with payment schemes and their compliance requirements, including experience with The Clearing House, The Federal Reserve, Nacha, SEPA, Faster Payments Scheme, etc.
Strong understanding of the regulatory landscape affecting payment schemes, including AML, KYC, OFAC, PSD2
Advanced analytical skills with an ability to introduce structure into ambiguity
Strong communication and presentation skills, both written and oral. This individual must be able to communicate effectively at all levels of the organization
Proven track record to work autonomously and adjust quickly to shifting priorities, multiple demands, ambiguity, and rapid change
Problem solving skills to tackle complex and unexpected issues which rise from time to time including escalations from merchants
Willingness to occasionally travel between Burgess Hill, Brighton and London as needed
Working hours flexibility given the international nature of the role
London based, Hybrid
Employment eligibility to work with American Express in the UK is required as the company will not pursue visa sponsorship for these positions.
We back you with benefits that support your holistic well-being so you can be and deliver your best. This means caring for you and your loved ones' physical, financial, and mental health, as well as providing the flexibility you need to thrive personally and professionally:
Competitive base salaries
Bonus incentives
Support for financial-well-being and retirement
Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, life insurance, and disability benefits (depending on location)
Flexible working model with hybrid, onsite or virtual arrangements depending on role and business need
Generous paid parental leave policies (depending on your location)
Free access to global on-site wellness centers staffed with nurses and doctors (depending on location)
Free and confidential counseling support through our Healthy Minds program
Career development and training opportunities
Offer of employment with American Express is conditioned upon the successful completion of a background verification check, subject to applicable laws and regulations.