Lead Payments Operations Specialist

Applied Systems Canada•Toronto, ON

3d•Hybrid

About The Position

We’re searching for a Lead Payments Operations Specialist to join our Digital Payments team in hybrid location from our Toronto office. In this role, you will own the execution and integrity of our payments operations function. You will own dispute metrics, ACH return exposure, fraud escalation, and KYC exception resolution, and you will direct an Operations Analyst to execute against the standards you set. If you've worked in a payfac, ISO, or acquiring environment and you're ready to own outcomes rather than just execute tasks, this role was built for you. To keep us headed in the right direction, we’re looking for people who understand winning is a team sport, who value and seek to learn from our team’s diverse experiences and backgrounds, who welcome a challenge and take risks in the pursuit of creating better outcomes for our customers, and who can, at any given time, step back to laugh and have some fun.

Requirements

5+ years in payments operations, fintech, or financial services with direct ownership of dispute management, ACH, or fraud monitoring
Working knowledge of NACHA operating rules, card network dispute regulations, and Regulation E
Experience directing others in an operational environment
Ability to use data and tooling including SQL, Excel, and case management platforms to investigate issues and drive process improvement
Comfort working with AI-assisted workflows or automation tools to reduce manual effort and improve operational efficiency
Strong written communication; you can explain a complex operational decision clearly to a non-payments audience

Nice To Haves

Experience at a payment facilitator, ISO, or acquiring bank
Familiarity with sub-merchant onboarding and KYC processes
Hands-on experience building or refining automated workflows for triage, reconciliation, or case routing
Exposure to the insurance or insurtech vertical

Responsibilities

Dispute and chargeback management: evidence packages, outcome tracking, and ratio exposure and refund workflows managed end-to-end
ACH return monitoring: tracking return rate trends, identifying patterns that indicate systemic issues, and surfacing actionable findings to product and customer success teams for resolution
Fraud monitoring: reviewing flagged alerts within SLA, triaging suspicious activity, and making judgment calls, and serving as the team's first escalation point on complex cases with documented rationale.
KYC exception resolution: managing KYC outcomes, document collection, failure remediation, and exception handling in coordination with our processor and internal stakeholders
Operational documentation: maintaining SOPs and playbooks, identifying gaps or outdated procedures and raising them for review
Team direction: day-to-day guidance, quality oversight, and structured feedback for the Operations Analyst