Card Scheme Team Lead
Skills
About the Role
You will act as a key relationship owner for major card schemes such as Visa, Mastercard, UPI, and Discover, strengthening long-term partnerships and increasing the company's visibility within the scheme ecosystem. You will represent the company in external meetings, workshops, and scheme events, building trust-based relationships that facilitate smoother approvals, waivers, and support. You will serve as the primary liaison with global card schemes and payments-related partners, leading implementation projects and translating scheme requirements into practical solutions for internal teams. You will monitor bulletins, mandatory changes, and global releases, ensuring timely compliance and managing risks around scheme mandates. You will also design and implement automation for mandate tracking, impact assessment, and compliance monitoring, and lead end-to-end certification for card products, 3DS/tokenization, and Apple Pay/Google Pay.
Requirements
- 5+ years of experience with Card Schemes, Merchant Acquiring, PSP
- Strong knowledge of Visa/Mastercard rules, with specific experience in Card Not Present Payments
- Proven ability to navigate Card Scheme relationships and compliance issues
- Ability to convince colleagues and stress the importance of compliance requirements
- Solid communication skills with internal and external stakeholders and merchants
- Exceptional organizational and time-management skills
- Ability to manage multiple projects and tasks in parallel
- Comfortable working in fast-paced, high-demand environments
- Strong written and verbal communication skills, including drafting formal correspondence
- Proactive mindset - ability to identify issues before they arise
- Strong and effective leadership skills
- Ability to operate within a complex cultural, global environment
- Professional fluency in English (written and spoken); other languages an advantage
Responsibilities
- Act as a key relationship owner for major card schemes, strengthening long-term partnerships
- Drive initiatives to increase visibility of the company within Visa, Mastercard and other schemes
- Proactively engage with scheme representatives to identify collaboration opportunities
- Represent the company in external meetings, workshops, and scheme events
- Build trust-based relationships to facilitate approvals, waivers, and support from schemes
- Identify opportunities for participation in pilot programs, scheme-led initiatives, and innovation projects
- Serve as the primary liaison with global card schemes and payments-related partners
- Lead and coordinate implementation projects involving card schemes
- Develop and maintain policies, procedures, and control frameworks for scheme compliance
- Engage with internal stakeholders to translate scheme requirements into practical solutions
- Provide guidance to internal teams on Card Scheme rules and requirements
- Document business and technical requirements
- Monitor bulletins, mandatory changes, and global releases
- Ensure timely implementation of scheme requirements across teams
- Translate scheme rules into internal processes and technical requirements
- Maintain internal policies, procedures, and control frameworks
- Support compliance monitoring against Card Scheme rules
- Manage risks and secure waivers when deadlines cannot be met
- Respond to non-compliance notifications raised by Card Schemes
- Design and implement automation for mandate tracking, impact assessment, and ticket routing
- Reduce manual workload in compliance monitoring, reporting, and certification tracking
- Develop internal AI tools for scheme documentation and smart search
- Lead end-to-end certification for acquiring and issuing card products
- Lead certification for 3DS, tokenization, Apple Pay, and Google Pay
- Coordinate processors, vendors, and scheme stakeholders