Cardaq
Head Of Payments
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Head of Payments
Location: London, UK — Onsite
Employment: Full-time, Permanent
Salary: £95,000–£120,000 gross per annum
Industry: Payments / Fintech / E-commerce / Financial Services
Reports to: CEO / Executive Management
About Cardaq
Cardaq is an international payments and financial technology group headquartered in London. We provide payment and financial technology solutions to businesses operating across international markets, with a particular focus on e-commerce and modern digital commerce. As Cardaq continues to expand its technology, payment capabilities, and international footprint, we are looking for an experienced Head of Payments to take a leading role in the development and performance of our payments business.
The Role
The Head of Payments will be responsible for helping define and execute Cardaq’s overall payments strategy, with a particular focus on e-commerce acquiring and payment processing. This is a senior, hands-on leadership position. You will work directly with the CEO and senior leadership while collaborating closely with Technology, Product, Operations, Commercial, Risk, Compliance, and Finance.
We are looking for someone who understands payments from end to end — not simply from a commercial or product perspective. You should understand what happens from the moment a customer clicks “Pay” through authorisation, authentication, routing, processing, clearing, settlement, reconciliation, refunds, chargebacks, and disputes. Most importantly, you should understand how to make that entire ecosystem more reliable, scalable, and commercially successful.
Key Responsibilities
The Head of Payments will:
- Lead Cardaq’s payments strategy and contribute to the wider product and commercial roadmap.
- Take ownership of the performance and development of our e-commerce payment capabilities.
- Develop and optimise merchant acquiring and payment-processing propositions.
- Work closely with Technology and Product teams on payment gateway and processing infrastructure.
- Manage and develop relationships with processors, banks, card schemes, payment providers, and technology partners.
- Identify and evaluate new payment methods, technologies, and strategic partnerships.
- Drive improvements in payment acceptance and authorisation performance.
- Analyse payment routing, declines, and transaction performance.
- Work with Risk and Compliance teams to maintain appropriate controls across the payment lifecycle.
- Work with Commercial teams to develop competitive payment propositions for merchants.
- Support pricing and commercial modelling for payment products.
- Oversee payment-related operational processes and identify opportunities for automation.
- Support the implementation of new markets, currencies, and payment methods.
- Provide senior management with clear payment-performance reporting and strategic recommendations.
- Build and lead a high-performing payments function as the business grows.
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E-commerce & Acquiring
Strong e-commerce payments experience is essential for this position. The successful candidate should have practical knowledge across several of the following areas:
- Merchant acquiring
- Card-not-present / e-commerce transactions
- Payment gateways
- Payment processing
- Visa and Mastercard ecosystems
- Authorisation and transaction routing
- 3-D Secure / Strong Customer Authentication
- Tokenisation
- Recurring and subscription payments
- Merchant onboarding
- MCCs and merchant classification
- Settlement and reconciliation
- Refunds and reversals
- Chargebacks and disputes
- Fraud and payment risk
- Cross-border payments
- Multi-currency processing
- FX
- Alternative payment methods
- Payment orchestration
Experience dealing with complex international or higher-risk e-commerce environments would be particularly valuable.
Payment Performance
One of the key objectives of this position will be improving the performance of Cardaq’s payment ecosystem. The Head of Payments should be comfortable analysing:
- Authorisation rates
- Decline reasons
- Conversion
- Payment routing
- Fraud rates
- Chargebacks
- Refunds
- Processing costs
- Scheme costs
- Merchant profitability
- Settlement performance
- Operational incidents
You should be able to turn payment data into practical actions that improve both merchant experience and Cardaq’s commercial performance.
Card Schemes & Partners
Strong knowledge of the card-scheme ecosystem is highly desirable. Candidates with direct experience working with Visa and Mastercard in an acquiring, processing, PSP, or payment-institution environment will have a significant advantage. The role may also involve supporting the development of relationships and integrations with additional card schemes, banks, processors, alternative payment methods, and technology providers.
Product & Technology
You do not need to be a software engineer, but you must be technically comfortable. You should be able to have meaningful conversations with engineers and architects regarding areas such as:
- APIs, gateways, processors, transaction routing, webhooks, tokenisation, payment orchestration, reconciliation, authentication, PCI DSS, and payment infrastructure.
You should be capable of translating commercial requirements into clear requirements for Product and Technology teams — and challenging technical decisions where they affect payment performance or customer experience.
Candidate Profile
We are looking for someone with:
- Significant senior experience within payments, fintech, acquiring, processing, or a PSP.
- Strong e-commerce payment experience — essential.
- Deep understanding of the end-to-end card-payment lifecycle.
- Strong knowledge of merchant acquiring and payment processing.
- Experience working with payment gateways and processors.
- Knowledge of Visa and Mastercard environments.
- Experience managing external payment and banking partners.
- Strong commercial and analytical capabilities.
- Experience analysing payment performance and improving conversion or authorisation rates.
- Strong understanding of payment risk, fraud, and chargebacks.
- Experience working closely with Product and Technology teams.
- Strong leadership and stakeholder-management skills.
- Excellent written and spoken English.
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Highly Desirable
Experience within one or more of the following would be particularly attractive:
- International acquiring
- Cross-border e-commerce
- Payment orchestration
- High-volume transaction environments
- Alternative payment methods
- Open Banking
- Digital wallets
- Visa Direct
- Mastercard payment products
- Multi-currency acquiring
- Payment optimisation
- Regulated EMI/PI environments
Experience helping build or significantly scale a PSP, acquirer, payment gateway, or processing platform would be a major advantage.
What Success Looks Like
During the first 6–12 months, we would expect the Head of Payments to establish clear ownership and visibility across Cardaq’s payment ecosystem. Success should translate into measurable improvements in areas such as:
- Payment acceptance and authorisation rates
- Platform reliability
- Merchant experience
- Payment-routing efficiency
- Processing and scheme costs
- Settlement and reconciliation
- Product capability
- Partner performance
- Speed of new integrations
- Payment-related operational efficiency
Beyond the numbers, we want the Head of Payments to help create a payments organisation capable of supporting Cardaq’s next stage of international growth.
What We Offer
- 💷 £95,000–£120,000 gross annual salary
- 📍 Senior onsite position in London
- 🌍 Exposure to an international payments business and multiple markets
- 💳 Opportunity to work across acquiring, processing, and emerging payment technologies
- 🧑💻 Close collaboration with Cardaq’s Technology, Product, and Commercial teams
- 🤝 Direct engagement with senior leadership and external payment partners
- 🚀 The opportunity to help shape Cardaq’s future payments infrastructure rather than simply operate an established product
Working Environment
This is an onsite leadership position based in London. We are looking for someone who enjoys working close to the business, making decisions, and taking ownership. Cardaq operates in a fast-moving and highly regulated industry. The successful candidate therefore needs to be comfortable balancing innovation, commercial performance, operational resilience, and regulatory responsibility.
How to Apply
Please send your CV to hr@cardaq.com, quoting “Head of Payments – London” in the subject line.
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