About the Role
This role owns the acquiring business end to end: its growth, margin, and setup. The Manager sets the acquiring strategy, manages the acquiring banks, processors, and card schemes behind it, and ensures every merchant is priced, onboarded, settled, and monitored correctly. The position does not manage a sales team directly but equips sales teams with necessary pricing, propositions, and products, collaborates with Business Intelligence on data and deal economics, and partners with Product on developing new acquiring products.
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Responsibilities
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Acquiring Strategy and Performance
- Own the acquiring business plan and budget across SME and Strategic Account Acquiring: TPV, revenue, take rate, cost of acceptance, and margin.
- Set targets by segment and channel with sales managers, and track delivery monthly.
- Lead the transition from third-party acquirers to in-house acquiring, including the merchant and sub-merchant (payment facilitator) model and MID strategy.
- Report acquiring performance, risks, and actions to the Director – Commercials and leadership.
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Acquirer, Processor, and Scheme Management
- Manage relationships and contracts with acquiring banks, processors, gateways (e.g., MPGS), and card schemes (Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Jaywan).
- Negotiate acquiring and processing costs, and implement smart routing to lower the cost of acceptance.
- Own scheme compliance for acquiring, including MCC assignment, scheme rules, chargeback and fraud thresholds, and required certifications in coordination with Risk and Compliance.
- Collaborate with CBUAE-facing teams to ensure adherence to regulatory requirements for acquiring.
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Pricing and Propositions
- Own the acquiring rate cards by MCC, card type, channel (e-commerce, POS, SoftPOS), and domestic or international cards.
- Approve deal pricing for strategic and SME merchants within agreed margin floors, leveraging deal economics from Business Intelligence.
- Build acquiring propositions and support sales teams on key deals, client meetings, and RFPs.
- Track realized vs. list pricing and margin per merchant segment, responding to low-margin merchants as necessary.
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Merchant Onboarding, Risk, and Operations
- Establish the merchant onboarding policy with Risk and Compliance, including KYB, underwriting, MCC classification, and risk tiers.
- Maintain fast onboarding: target turnaround time from signed contract to live merchant, including terminal and gateway setup.
- Oversee settlement, reconciliation, chargebacks, and fraud monitoring in partnership with Operations and Finance.
- Manage the POS, SoftPOS, and ECR partner setup, including integration with POS software providers.
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Product Development
- Collaborate with Product on the acquiring roadmap: payment gateway, POS, SoftPOS, Pay by Link, DCC, Amex acceptance, tokenization, BNPL, and alternative payment methods.
- Write business requirements and business cases for new acquiring products and features.
- Plan launches and go-to-market strategies with sales teams, tracking adoption and revenue post-launch.
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Sales Enablement
- Train SME and Strategic Account sales teams on acquiring products, pricing, and onboarding processes.
- Provide sales teams with essential tools: rate cards, proposition templates, product sheets, and onboarding checklists.
- Support the SME Acquiring Manager with partner channels, including Outsourced Sales Partners.
Education
- Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Finance, Business, or a related field.
- An MBA or payments certifications (e.g., Visa or Mastercard programs) are advantageous.
Experience
- 8–12 years in merchant acquiring with a bank, acquirer, PSP, or payment facilitator.
- Experienced in owning an acquiring P&L, product line, or major merchant portfolio.
- Proven track record in managing acquiring banks, processors, or schemes, including contract and cost negotiations.
- Experience in establishing new acquiring businesses, licenses, or payment facilitator models is highly advantageous.
- UAE or GCC acquiring experience, particularly with government merchants, is a strong advantage.
Technical and Payments Knowledge
- Comprehensive understanding of card transaction flows from authorisation and clearing to settlement, chargebacks, and reconciliation.
- Knowledge of acquiring economics, including interchange, scheme fees, MDR, interchange++ pricing, acquirer and processing costs.
- Familiarity with gateways, 3DS, tokenization, POS and SoftPOS terminals, ECR integrations, and PCI DSS requirements.
- Understanding of scheme rules and merchant risk, including MCC, KYB and underwriting, chargeback, and fraud monitoring programs.
- Knowledge of payment facilitator and sub-merchant models, and local payment methods like Apple Pay, Google Pay, Aani, and BNPL.
Skills
- Strong commercial judgment to assess merchant value and profitable deal-making.
- Excellent negotiation skills with banks, processors, schemes, and large merchants.
- Ability to lead through influence: achieving results from sales, product, operations, and risk teams without direct management.
- Strong writing and presentation skills for developing business cases, propositions, and management reports.
- Fluent in English; proficiency in Arabic is an advantage.
