Head of Acquiring and Open Banking Solutions

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.

This is an exciting opportunity to join Starling’s Customer and Banking team to be the Solution Owner for our growing suite of acquiring solutions and open banking capabilities.  

As our new Head of Acquiring and Open Banking Solutions you'll bring new payment solutions to our customers, helping our business customers to get paid faster and our retail customers to efficiently and securely top-up their accounts, request money and make payments, as well as owning the services, and work alongside Retail Bank, Business Bank and Starling Banking Services (SBS) teams to take the solutions to our customers.

You'll also own our traditional merchant acquiring relationships / solutions (e.g., Settle-Up / pay by card), open banking solutions (e.g., PIS / AIS) and direct debit origination and associated payouts/refunds capabilities.  The role holder will work with our internal tech / product teams to compliantly build solutions, and complement our stack by bringing in leading technology service providers where appropriate.

Key Responsibilities:

Acquiring ownership

• Act as the central owner for all acquiring services.
• Manage the Bank’s traditional card acquiring capabilities alongside the services’ end-users in the Retail Bank, Business Bank and SBS.  
• Centrally manage our cost of acquiring and acquiring relationships.
• Act as the business owner for merchant acquiring PCI-DSS requirements.
• Manage related payout / refund / indemnity services.

Open Banking solutions

• Alongside technology, run and develop our open banking Payment Initiation Services and our internal AIS capability
• Act as the SME for Starling’s ASPSP participation, in particular PIS sweeping and future commercial VRP engagements 
• Represent Starling at key industry events and forums, in particular Bank representation at the Open Banking Founding Funders Forum and other scheme commercial VRP opportunities

Journey commercialisation

• Work collaboratively with colleagues in the Business Bank / Retail Bank / SBS to take the solutions to market 
• Support with customer price setting (where relevant) and manage service costs 

Requirements

Essential experience

• Must have run scale card acquiring relationships on the merchant side, covering PCI-DSS
• Must have experience in PIS and AIS capabilities, across multiple use cases.
• Must have knowledge of and experience in Direct Debit Origination services.
• Strong 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.

Good 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.