Associate Director, Payments/Scheme Economics

About Airwallex

Airwallex is the AI-native financial operating system for a real-time, intelligent economy. More than 675,000 businesses, including McLaren Racing, Qantas, SHEIN, and TikTok, use us, directly or through our platform partners, to run their financial operations or build and monetize financial products of their own.

We started in Melbourne in 2015 to build the infrastructure global commerce runs on. We're the regulated backbone behind global payments: not by accident, but by design. A decade plus, 85+ licenses, and a financial infrastructure spanning North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific.

We're co-headquartered in San Francisco and Singapore, with more than 2,700 people across 27 offices. We hire builders with founder-level energy, people who move fast with good judgment, dig in with real curiosity, and make calls from first principles rather than waiting to be told what to do. Read our operating principles to see it in full.

How you'll make impact

You'll own the integrity, visibility and management of Airwallex's payment costs, starting with card scheme fees and interchange fees across Visa and Mastercard. You'll turn complex network rules into accurate configurations, financial insight and commercial decisions.

• Own payment-cost integrity across scheme fees, interchange and network rules, translating changes into clear financial, product and operational requirements.

• Build accurate fee tables, eligibility criteria and transaction-level logic with Product and Engineering, ensuring cost calculation, allocation and customer billing reflect current network rules.

• Develop models and analytics across markets, products, payment methods and transaction types to identify margin drivers, anomalies, leakage and opportunities to improve payment economics.

• Drive structural cost and margin optimisation through transaction qualification, BIN routing, cost configuration and other levers, while shaping pricing, product design, market launches and commercial strategy.

• Strengthen governance, testing, reconciliation and automated controls, comparing expected costs with actual network charges and driving root-cause resolution.

• Serve as the escalation point for scheme pricing, interchange and rule-related questions, working directly with Visa, Mastercard and other payment partners where required.

You'll work from our London office three days a week.

What we're looking for

Essentials

• 7+ years of relevant experience in payments, acquiring, issuing, card networks, payment infrastructure or related roles, ideally within a global PSP, acquirer, scheme, issuer or fintech.

• Deep knowledge of card payment economics, particularly Visa and Mastercard interchange, scheme fees, transaction qualification and network rules.

• Strong ability to operationalise complex payment rules, translating fee schedules and network requirements into system logic, configurations and controls.

• Experience with payment cost systems and controls, including interchange tables, scheme fee logic, BIN-based rules, transaction attributes or similar payment configurations.

• Strong analytical and quantitative capabilities, including experience working with transaction-level data, economic modelling and reconciliation of expected versus actual payment costs.

• Strong commercial judgment, with the ability to connect detailed payment mechanics to pricing, product decisions and margin optimisation.

• Exceptional attention to detail and ownership, with the discipline required to manage complex rules where small errors can create meaningful financial impact at scale.

• Strong cross-functional execution, with the ability to work effectively across Product, Engineering, Finance, Data, Operations and external payment partners.

Preferred

• Experience partnering directly with Visa, Mastercard or other payment networks.

• Experience applying AI or advanced analytics to rule interpretation, anomaly detection or payment-cost optimisation.

You'll thrive here if

• You own the outcome and you don't wait for permission to fix what's broken.

• You're comfortable with ambiguity. Give you a problem, not a prescription, and you'll run with it.

• You have experience at a fintech, payments company, or other highly regulated business.

• You connect dots across functions and hold the big picture without losing grip on the details.

• You say what you mean. You're direct, but you lead with respect.

Learn more about your team

Finance & Corporate Development helps Airwallex grow with control. We’re a trusted partner to the business, providing actionable insights on performance, supporting market and product expansion and helping to shape the future of our product. We ensure that Airwallex meets its financial reporting, tax and safeguarding obligations globally. We work with existing and prospective investors to raise capital and ensure it is deployed effectively.

This is a team for people who want to reimagine how the CFO office works. We’re looking for founder-like energy, high integrity and a passion for technology. You’ll thrive here if you enjoy working cross-functionally, think from first principles and can balance speed of execution with analytical precision.

Applicant Safety Policy: Fraud and Third-Party Recruiters

To protect you from recruitment scams, please be aware that Airwallex will not ask for bank details, sensitive ID numbers (i.e. passport), or any form of payment during the application or interview process. All official communication will come from an @ airwallex.com email address. Please apply only through careers.airwallex.com or our official LinkedIn page.

Airwallex does not accept unsolicited resumes from search firms/recruiters. Airwallex will not pay any fees to search firms/recruiters if a candidate is submitted by a search firm/recruiter unless an agreement has been entered into with respect to specific open position(s). Search firms/recruiters submitting resumes to Airwallex on an unsolicited basis shall be deemed to accept this condition, regardless of any other provision to the contrary.

Equal opportunity

Airwallex is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We value diversity and anyone seeking employment at Airwallex is considered based on merit, qualifications, competence and talent. We don’t regard color, religion, race, national origin, sexual orientation, ancestry, citizenship, sex, marital or family status, disability, gender, or any other legally protected status when making our hiring decisions. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.