Head of Payment Solutions and Compliance

Hello, we’re Starling. We built a new kind of bank because we knew technology had the power to help people save, spend and manage their money in a new and transformative way. We’re a fully licensed UK bank with the culture and spirit of a fast-moving, disruptive tech company. We’re a bank, but better: fairer, easier to use and designed to demystify money for everyone. We employ more than 3,500 people across our London, Southampton, Cardiff and Manchester offices.

We're looking for a strategic leader to join our Customer & Banking team as the solution owner for our payments capabilities. In this pivotal role, you'll take full ownership of our key payment services, including FPS, BACS, CHAPS, and cheques, ensuring regulatory compliance, operational excellence, and outstanding customer outcomes. You'll steer the end to end journey for payments, define strategy, and lead on regulatory engagement, particulary around important Business Services (IBS). If you're passionate about shaping the future of payments in a fast-moving environment, this is your chance to make a real impact.

Key Responsibilities Include:

Payments ownership

• Act as the central owner for our payment services, in particular our Important Business Services (IBS)
• Help design and implement the Bank's payment strategy.
• Continually evaluate the regulatory and competitive landscapes to understand where potential risks / challenges are, as well as where the key opportunities for growth and development are.
• Ensure all payment journeys are mapped end to end, including system and manual risks and controls.
• Alongside the MD, define the payment limits and configurations for our key services, balancing our customers’ needs for security, convenience and inclusivity
• Alongside the COO team, work with the Bank’s Payment and Reconciliation Operations team to ensure that regulatory expectations are met and that we are delivering good outcomes for customers.
• Agree, set and manage SLAs for the COO payments operations team
• Represent Starling at key industry events and forums.

Risk and control

• Lead on risk identification and regulatory mapping, ensuring that payment RCSAs are effectively maintained.
• Ongoing oversight of payment control effectiveness.
• Ensure that all payment incidents which arise are managed in a timely and effective manner, consistent with regulatory expectations
• Own and react to operational reporting, covering Transaction Processing KRIs and MI.
• Maintain live view of current and future regulatory requirements via established horizon scanning and pro-active research
• Act as the team’s point person for BCP and incident management

Requirements

Essentials

• Expertise of key payment regulations (PSR2017 / PSD2 etc) and relevance to Bank operations
• Deep understanding of payments and the payments landscape.
• Strong knowledge of our key payment rails FPS / BACS / CHAPS etc.
• Knowledge of payment trends and pay.uk / PSR evolution
• Payments vocation - must care passionately about payments, want to learn more and appetite to upgrade the Bank’s understanding

• Consistently act with the highest ethical standards, ensuring decisions are always in the best interest of our customers, colleagues, and the bank. Lead by example, fostering a culture of trust and transparency across all levels.

Nice to have

• Experience in collaborating effectively across a variety of business areas and ability to interact effectively with all levels.
• Diplomacy and emotional intelligence to build strong professional relationships at all levels
• Hands-on, resilient and adaptable to a fast moving environments
• Ability to communicate complex concepts and issues in a business-friendly manner to senior/executive management.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills

Benefits

• 25 days holiday (plus take your public holiday allowance whenever works best for you)
• An extra day’s holiday for your birthday
• Annual leave is increased with length of service, and you can choose to buy or sell up to five extra days off
• 16 hours paid volunteering time a year
• Salary sacrifice, company enhanced pension scheme
• Life insurance at 4x your salary & group income protection
• Private Medical Insurance with VitalityHealth including mental health support and cancer care. Partner benefits include discounts with Waitrose, Mr&Mrs Smith and Peloton
• Generous family-friendly policies
• Incentives refer a friend scheme
• Perkbox membership giving access to retail discounts, a wellness platform for physical and mental health, and weekly free and boosted perks
• Access to initiatives like Cycle to Work, Salary Sacrificed Gym partnerships and Electric Vehicle (EV) leasing

About us:

You may be put off applying for a role because you don't tick every box. Forget that! While we can’t accommodate every flexible working request, we're always open to discussion. So, if you're excited about working with us, but aren’t sure if you're 100% there yet, get in touch anyway.We’re on a mission to radically reshape banking – and that starts with our brilliant team. Whatever came before, we’re proud to bring together people of all backgrounds and experiences who love working together to solve problems.

Starling Bank is an equal opportunity employer, and we’re proud of our ongoing efforts to foster diversity & inclusion in the workplace. Individuals seeking employment at Starling Bank are considered without regard to race, religion, national origin, age, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, medical condition, ancestry, physical or mental disability, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. When you provide us with this information, you are doing so at your own consent, with full knowledge that we will process this personal data in accordance with our Privacy Notice. By submitting your application, you agree that Starling Bank will collect your personal data for recruiting and related purposes. Our Privacy Notice explains what personal information we will process, where we will process your personal information, its purposes for processing your personal information, and the rights you can exercise over our use of your personal information.